


Necessary

by Braincoins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (not the horse kind; sorry), (sort of), Alien Biology, Aliens Made Them Do It, All kinds of languages really, Banter, Cunnilingus, F/M, Fantasizing, Fellatio, Graphic Violence only in nightmares, Language, Major Character Death in nightmares, Mutual Pining, Non-con in nightmares, Riding, Technically there's only one bed..., but I didn't really pull punches with the nightmares so..., getting off in the shower, in happier news:, nothing's THAT bad in the reality of the fic I promise!!, safe sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-09 21:21:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19484275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins
Summary: Last they knew, Shiro and Allura were fighting the Galra. Suddenly they're on a strange ship with strange aliens who have... averystrange request for them. They're both stubborn enough not to give in... aren't they?





	Necessary

**Author's Note:**

> ~~This was supposed to be short.~~  
>  Thank you to [mckinlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mckinlily/pseuds/mckinlily) (and to [Lyxan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyxan) (& their partner)) for beta-reading assistance! (Y'all are the best (like no one ever was)!) 
> 
> As with pretty much everything I write anymore, FUCK CANON. This is kind of an AU of an AU, in that it takes bits from my V:LotD verse pretty much willy-nilly. I'm not sure it fits the V:LotD timeline at all. Oh well. Important bits:
> 
>   * Shiro has a new arm. As in [Components](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926975), it was made for him by the Paladins and Allura. It needed quintessence to work, and Allura tried to fill it with hers but collapsed before she could finish, so Keith added his to top it off.
>   * Allura's tiara is intact; that is, the gem from her tiara wasn't used to make Shiro's new arm.
>   * I'm incorporating some headcanons from my fics [Kindling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148019), [Feeling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093857), and [the Connection-verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/588535) at large. Even a couple from the Starlight/Paladin universe! xD
>   * And, of course, explicitly bi Shiro. There’s mention of Allura having had some “flings” back before she took her 10,000 year beauty nap, but no sexes/genders are mentioned - feel free to headcanon them as you wish. As usual, I think of our glorious princess as pansexual.
> 

> 
> Also, I really want to stress this: only in Shiro's night terrors and Allura's nightmares do any of the Big Warnings occur (the Graphic Violence, the Rape/Non-Con, the Major Character Death). **NONE OF THAT HAPPENS IN THE REALITY OF THE FIC.** But I really didn't pull any punches with these dreams - they're _meant_ to be horrible and disturbing, they're _meant_ to terrify their dreamers (and, in at least one case, make them emotionally vulnerable afterwards).
> 
> All of that being said, these things are _still in the fic_ and I would be remiss in not tagging for them. But I just wanted to clarify how they're being used in this case.

“Shiro, we need Voltron!” the princess demanded over the comms. That much was obvious: the Galra had them outnumbered, and he knew they were buying time, waiting for Zarkon’s command ship to warp in to put the final nail in the coffin.

“And Voltron’s going to need you,” he replied. Ever since she’d dismantled the komar, Princess Allura had been studying her father’s alchemy notes and texts, working on uncovering and increasing her power as – in Coran’s words – a “Sacred Altean.” And they’d discovered a rather nifty little trick:

Princess Allura could supercharge Voltron.

She could do it from any Lion, but it worked best when she was in Black with Shiro. She let the team focus on maintaining and moving Voltron and she simply poured power and energy into the mighty robot, like a turbo charger of sorts. Every move, every punch and kick and weapon and shield, was more powerful than it would ever have been on its own.

It drained her to do it; Shiro wasn’t usually the one to suggest it. She worked so hard, gave so much of herself to this war, and Shiro often felt like she and Coran and the Castle should be _protected_ , not put in the line of fire. To a certain extent that was true, but he tried not to get overprotective of her. She’d hate it, for one thing, and… well, she _was_ an invaluable resource.

With this many fleets, this many ships, and the inevitability of Zarkon closing in on them, he had to use their ace in the hole: Princess Allura’s power boost. He didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it, or _none_ of them would survive.

Her voice, when she responded, was sure and steady. “I’ll launch a personal podcraft; you can pick me up.”

“Paladins, let’s clear a path for the lady,” he ordered.

There was a chorus of affirmatives and a blast of fire from Red in answer. Shiro grinned. This was what he liked best about battle, honestly: not the fighting, never the fighting, except in some of his worst nightmares where he reveled in the blood and death of the Arena, but the _team_. It was the best thing about Voltron, too, because when they combined, he could feel it, _really_ feel the camaraderie, and he _knew_ , as certain as he knew all the constellations of Earth, that his team cared for him and had his back. That feeling of… of just not being alone, of working together to accomplish a good and noble goal… That was what he liked best.

Princess Allura shot out of the Castle, and Black’s scanners picked her up, highlighting her on his screens. Green swooped in to protect her from a blast, and Shiro urged his Lion forward. Black roared as she opened her mouth to seemingly devour the tiny little Altean woman. _So tiny out here in the deep black of space, we’re all tiny compared to the Lions, compared to the cosmos itself…_ No time for philosophizing right now. But it was hard not to when he would have undoubtedly lost track of her in all this chaos if it weren’t for his screens having zoomed in and auto-tracked her.

“I’m aboard,” Allura said. “On my way to the cockpit.”

“Alright, team!” Shiro called out. “Let’s form Vo-…!”

She groaned as she opened her eyes. She didn’t hurt or ache anywhere, but she felt like she was waking up from a bad sleep – a feeling she was all too familiar with. Allura could hardly remember what good sleep felt like anymore. So many of her nights were full of all the terrors her imagination could conjure: the last moments of her father, her people, her planet. The sacrifice of the other paladins. The possible sacrifice of _these_ paladins, all of whom had become so dear to her.

Loss haunted her.

So sleep was rare, snatched away in short, triumphant gulps, and she never admitted to anyone – least of all herself – that she was still thirsty for more, that she needed more and better rest. _Maybe I’ll have another ten thousand deca-phoeb nap when this is all over._ She wouldn’t, she couldn’t, she hated the idea of getting back in a pod. But it was a dark joke that usually got her out of bed when she didn’t want to be.

But she wasn’t in bed. She wasn’t on the Castle of Lions, as near as she could tell. She was strapped down to a chair; admittedly, a rather comfortable chair, but still unable to move much. It was dark, but she tried to focus her eyes.

There was a groan next to her, and one she recognized. _Is it terrible that I can recognize him by that sound?_ The leader of Voltron had been through so much…

“Shiro?” she asked.

“Princess?” She heard him jerk against the straps. “Where are we? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Any of it.”

“Is anyone else here?” he asked.

She was still taking stock as they waited for an answer. Her helmet was gone, but otherwise she was still in her full flight suit. _I might be able to break these straps…_ but she wanted to wait first. Perhaps their captor would show up and make known their designs for them. _And then I can free myself and Shiro, defeat them, and we can get out of… wherever here is._ That was the other part of the problem.

They’d been in a battle against an overwhelming number of Galra fleets. She’d been on her way to Black’s cockpit; Shiro had been about to form Voltron. That was her last memory.

No one was answering.

“We have to assume we’re on a Galra ship,” Shiro observed.

“Logical conclusion. Though they’re usually not this… accommodating.”

He grunted in agreement. “The chair is surprisingly comfortable.”

“I agree,” she said, testing the straps. “Though I’d like a version without the restraints.”

“Yeah, not an option I would have gone with.” Rustling from Shiro’s direction. “I can’t get my hand near enough to any of the straps.” He sighed. “At least it’s just us; I don’t think they caught the rest of the team.”

“Or they’re holding them somewhere else,” she reminded him grimly.

“I hope they’re at least half as comfy as we are.”

She chuckled thinly. Shiro was good at keeping her spirits up. “Don’t worry; I’ll get us out of here.”

“Not too soon, I hope?”

“When the time is right.”

“I await your cue, Princess.”

She smiled. Polite as always, even if it put distance between them. She was often torn on whether to correct him on his habit of using her title. On one hand, they were friends, weren’t they? They were all friends and teammates. They’d been in many battles together, saved each other’s lives. This team was all she had; she didn’t want to stand on ceremony.

On the other hand, he was the only one besides Coran to use her title regularly. Sometimes the other paladins used it, but only infrequently. And sometimes… sometimes it was nice to be reminded that she still held a place of leadership. Sometimes it wasn’t, to be fair; sometimes she didn’t want to be the one calling the shots. But for _Shiro_ to acknowledge her title… He wasn’t Altean. He hadn’t been born and raised to revere the Altean crown and throne. He owed her no allegiance due to the accidents of birth – his _or_ hers – yet he gave it to her anyway.

It touched her deeply. In a way, it was almost an endearment. Not that he meant it as such, or that she even took it as such, typically. It was just… it was _nice_. It was nice of Shiro to be this semi-formal sort of casual with her – if that made sense. She knew where she stood with Shiro – as his princess – and in a universe as chaotic and unsteady as the one she’d woken up in after all that time, that was a precious thing.

Her ears twitched at picking up a sudden sound. “I think someone’s coming.”

“Ugh, what happened…?”

“Th-the Castle?”

“Where are we?”

“Weren’t we just in our Lions?”

Coran was at his station, typing away furiously. “We are now several… galaxies away from the battle site,” he announced, sending their location up to the main screen. “The Lions… are in their hangars.”

“Where’s Shiro?” Of course it was Keith who’d ask.

“And Allura?” And of course that was Lance.

“Scanning,” Coran said. The screen brought up a feed from the hangar which showed the Black Lion lying crumpled, like a broken children’s toy. He turned to the paladins who were coming to at their various stations, just as he had come to slumped over his mere ticks before they had awoken. “They’re not on the ship. We have the Black Lion, but… no Shiro, no Princess.”

Hunk reacted with his usual alarm. “We have to find them!”

“Already working on boosting the scanners,” Pidge said, fingers flashing over her keys. “The Castle knows their energy signatures; we can find them.”

“None of this explains how we wound up here,” Lance commented.

“And what about the Galra?” Keith demanded. “We were in the middle of a fight…”

“You wanna go back and try to finish it when we don’t have Shiro _or_ Allura?” Lance shot back.

“No, I’m just saying, we were fighting the Galra, but I don’t think they did this. They would have taken Black, not Shiro and Allura.”

“So someone _else_ sent us back to the Castle, put our Lions away in their hangars, and just made off with the two of them?” Hunk finished for him. “Who could do that?”

“WHY would they do it?” Lance asked.

“We don’t know that they ‘made off with’ either of them. It could be they’re… lost somewhere,” Coran said, though he didn’t like putting that forward as a positive alternative.

“Maybe this is some sort of new Olkari tech?” Pidge postulated as she typed. “Hunk, help me out with the boost.”

“Oh, right,” he said, settling in to start his own typing.

“They would have saved Shiro and Allura, too,” Keith protested.

“Something went wrong with it, maybe. Errors happen, even with great engineers like the Olkari,” she replied. “Think about it: transporting the Castle, all the Lions, AND all of us out of danger, all at once? It’s no wonder something went sideways. We just have to figure it out.”

“I’ll send a message to them,” Coran said. “Even if they didn’t do this, maybe they can help us figure it out.”

“Good idea.”

“But for now we’re safe?” Keith asked.

“Don’t,” Lance warned.

“What?”

“DO NOT fly out there in Red to go look for Shiro when we don’t even have a spot to _start_ looking.”

“You’re not my boss.”

“No, I’m your teammate and I’m telling you we’re already down two, let’s not lose someone else! At least wait until we have an idea of where to search; then you can run about all you want. But for now, just _STAY PUT, WILL YOU!?_ ” Lance all but screeched at him.

“Fine,” Keith sulked, folding his arms. “But the second – the _TICK_ – we have an idea…”

“Yes, yes, I won’t stand in your way,” he assured him. “I’ll be right out there with you. I mean, gotta have _someone_ competent out leading the search.”

Coran, Pidge, and Hunk let the two of them bicker. It was like white noise by now, and it helped keep their minds off the worrisome question of where the leaders of Voltron had disappeared to.

Shiro had no idea who or what it was that came into the room. At first that was just because it was dark, so much so that all he could make out was a moving shape, a separate piece of darkness in motion. But his instincts said, _Not Galra_. Which didn’t mean much when the Galra Empire stretched across the entire universe. It wasn’t inconceivable that they had underlings from other races, though he would have thought the two leaders of Voltron would be a valuable enough prize that it would be restricted to Galra-only. _Maybe this is a very ambitious underling, who’s going to deliver us to the Galra for their own glory. Or some sort of bounty hunter?_ Either of those ideas would make a bit more sense.

The figure paused, and very nearly became invisible. Darkness in darkness, to Shiro’s eyes. But he could feel himself being watched. _She’s super strong; she can snap these restraints whenever she wants, and then it’s all over for you, buddy._ But she’d wait. She’d get intel first, which is exactly what he’d have done in her spot. Hell, it’s what he’d do in his own spot, even without an obvious way to escape. Every drop of information you had was another tool to work with towards freedom.

And then a blinding light shot out of the figure. Shiro flinched away instinctively – such a bright blue – and then risked a look back when he heard a soft “beep.” The person made a noise that Shiro wasn’t even sure qualified as language, then the light came back, but this time it wasn’t pointed at him.

It was a scanning device of some sort: a thin line of blue started at the top of Princess Allura’s head and swept down over her body, then beeped again at its completion. The person made a different sound, thoughtful and, to Shiro’s mind, disappointed.

“Here wait, yes,” they said in thickly accented English, and then they moved again. There was a brief flare of slightly less dark, but the creature hesitated in the doorway. It looked down at what was in its hand, then made a soft motion. The door – Shiro assumed – closed behind it.

“This isn’t the Galra,” the princess said as soon as they were alone again.

“Yeah, I’m beginning to agree with you.” He reached out, not for the first time, for the Black Lion. The connection was still there, the bond still strong, but aside from that, there was nothing. It was like the mental equivalent of a busy signal, and he knew he wasn’t getting through.

“It’s hard to tell which race though,” she mused. He could tell the difference between her addressing him and her just thinking out loud. “Not any of the ones we’ve met since I awoke, certainly.”

“I was just thinking it’d been a while since we made some new friends,” he commented wryly.

Her answer to that was a gasp.

“Princess?” he asked worriedly, looking towards her voice even though he knew it’d do little good.

But, to his surprise, he could see her… sort of. She was dim, but he could make out more than just her tiara gem and the lights on her suit. And she looked like she was in pain.

“The… the straps are tightening… I can’t…”

“Try shifting!” he urged.

“I am! They’re just… tightening more… I don’t have room to…”

He looked down at his own restraints, which were also starting to be visible now. “Mine are the same.” He realized. “The scan. They know you’re Altean, and what that means.”

She grimaced and sighed. “I give up.” She fell back against the comfy chair and he could see the restraints tighten just a little more snugly around her shoulders, over her ribcage and arms, around her ankles and calves. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. We’ll figure something else out. We always do.”

She turned to smile at him. “Thank you, Shiro, I… wait. I can see you better.”

“Yeah, I think they’re very slowly raising the lights? Which is better than being blinded, but…”

She growled at the back of her throat, and the sound set the hairs on the back of Shiro’s neck up. _Settle down_ , he told them. It was easy enough; this wasn’t exactly a sexy mood they had going on here. Still, some reactions were inevitable. _When she sounds like that, some reactions are **very** inevitable. _“I don’t understand what’s going on! They’ve kidnapped us and clearly don’t want us to leave, yet they’re considerate enough to worry about our comfort?”

He decided to air one of his personal theories. “Perhaps we were picked up by very thoughtful bounty hunters? They’ll get more for us if we’re in good condition when handed over to Haggar and Zarkon.”

“Perhaps, but… I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.” She bit her bottom lip, chewing on it in thought.

He looked away again. That was one of the princess’s little habits that consistently made part of him sit up and take notice, for some reason. It was something about _her_ doing it, specifically; he’d never cared about that sort of thing when Adam had done it, or Jamie, or Kelly, or any of his other significant others. It wasn’t a typical turn-on for him. There was just something about Princess Allura doing it that set him off, just a little.

He’d gotten good at ignoring how ~~gorgeo~~ -… ~~lovel~~ -… _attractive_ she was. To be fair, it was usually pretty easy: they only had an entire universe to save. But now it was just the two of them, these increasingly unnerving chairs, and the growing ability to see. He let her worry at her lower lip in peace and refocused his mind on the matter at hand.

_So they want us for some reason. We don’t know if they have the others or what condition they’re in. We don’t even know_ how _they got ahold of us._

Something nagged at him, and eventually he realized what it was. “Wait, don’t most space-faring races have universal translators?” he asked.

“Hm?” She let go of her lip and turned to look at him. “Yes. All the ones I know, anyway.”

“It took the Galra translators a bit to ‘pick up’ English, but they did it, and now I can understand them perfectly fine. But that person who was just here… their English was off. Wrong word order, short and choppy sentence, thick accent.”

She blinked. “They’re not using a translator. They just know some of your Earth language?”

“Well, one of them,” he felt the need to clarify defensively. _One of these days, I’m going to teach you some Japanese. Just to prove that not all Earthlings speak English_. Though he _did_ speak English, it was basically the _lingua franca_ of Earth now – _and that means the French Tongue of Earth what the hell, and it’s a Latin phrase, and…_ He pulled himself back on task. “And they don’t know it well.”

“They’ve taught themselves, probably.”

“I mean, we’ve sent out enough broadcast signals. Though I don’t think we’d be…” He blinked. “We might be near Earth!”

“How near?”

“Uhh… well, I can’t really say for sure, but either we’re near Earth or these aliens have been within range of some of our broadcasts. Enough to teach themselves some English, at any rate.”

“Interesting. I wonder why they don’t use translator technology? It’s relatively easy to develop.”

“Says the woman from the supremely-advanced technological race.”

“We’re only supremely-advanced compared to some others.”

“Like humans,” he pointed out.

“You’ll catch up in time,” she replied consolingly.

“Besides, you have all this magitech stuff…”

“Magitech?” He was now fully capable of seeing the look of amused confusion on her face.

He spelled it out for her. “Magic + Technology = Magitech.”

She snorted. “ _Alchemy_ ,” she corrected him.

“Magitech,” he agreed, as if that was what she had said.

“Anyone could do it, with the proper training.”

He scoffed.

“It’s true! Oh, some would always be more adept at it than others, certainly – my father was a superb alchemist by dint of being Sacred, and Honerva was unrivalled in raw talent and diligent study – but anyone _could_ do it.”

“I couldn’t.”

“I bet you could.”

“That’s a bet you’d lose.”

She grinned at him. “When we get out of this, I’m going to teach you a simple alchemy trick,” she told him. “And I’m willing to bet that, if you apply yourself to it, you’ll be able to do it.”

“Bet what?” he shot back.

“Whatever you like,” she replied airily.

He whistled. “Someone’s sounding pretty confident.”

“I only bet when I know I’ll win.” But she swapped her almost arrogant expression for a warning as she looked at him. “But you have to try. _Really_ try, not just pretend to try then give up just to win the bet.”

“Okay, I’ll do it. When we get out of here.”

She nodded. “When we get home. Or… well, back to the Castle, I suppose.”

“When we get home,” he agreed, and the smile that bloomed on her face made him smile in return. He almost forgot that they were strapped to chairs, held by thus far unseen aliens who had mysterious, unknown purposes for them. Almost.

Allura had almost forgotten that they were captives of an as-yet unidentified alien race who had dark, unknowable plans for them, so caught up was she in her banter with Shiro. _Do you do it deliberately?_ she wondered to herself. _Do you do this just to keep me from getting either too angry or too scared?_ Not that she would ever have admitted to being frightened.

And, for the most part, she wasn’t, when it was just her. Death was an inevitable part of life, and she felt she had only a small part in the drama going on around her. She worked to make it bigger, to leave a legacy she – and her father – could be proud of, but that was the best she could do. She was insignificant compared to Voltron, the defender of legend.

Voltron being more important than she was necessarily meant _Shiro_ was more important than she was. He was the Black Paladin, the leader, the glue who held the team together. Sure, they had been coming together on their own more and more – Shiro’s near constant abductions, disappearances, and near-deaths ensured that – but Shiro was still the one the entire team turned to, in heart, mind, body, and soul.

The idea that she would be even tangentially responsible for the loss of Shiro and/or Voltron terrified her. Because without them, _everything_ was lost. The whole universe. Even if Zarkon never got his hands on the Black Lion again, there would be no one to stop him, no one to rise up and oppose his bloodthirsty desire for conquest and power.

She knew loss deeply, intimately, like an old fling she couldn’t avoid no matter how badly she wanted to. She could deal with it, when it was her own. But the idea that Shiro might die and she’d be unable to stop it chilled her to her bones. She couldn’t face the idea, and if it happened, she’d never be able to face anyone – not even herself – ever again.

So to tease each other, place silly bets – though she was adamant that she was right and she _did_ aim to prove it, as soon as they were free – chat as if they weren’t prisoners… It soothed her. And when he called the Castle of Lions home, she had to hold in happy tears.

_You still have a planet to call home. You still have blue skies and white clouds and green fields overrun with sprays of juniberry sporesSTOP **STOP**_. Thoughts of Altea would weaken her when she could least afford it. _You have a home, a place of origin that still exists in the universe, that you can return to. Yet still you call the Castle home?_

She wanted to press him on it, to ask him – gently, maybe hide it behind some teasing – why he considered the Castle home when he still had Earth? But before she could do more than open her mouth, her ears twitched again.

They could see now – the light wasn’t too bright, nor too dim – and Shiro blinked. He must have caught the motion, and of course he knew by now what it would signify. He said nothing but looked back to the door, surely as anxious as she was to get a good glimpse of who it was, exactly, who held them.

The door opened and a group of three walked in, each with what looked like some sort of datatab in their hands. They were talking amongst themselves in a language she didn’t understand, that even her universal translator wasn’t picking up. She didn’t worry about that for the moment.

_I know I know this race…_ But it wasn’t coming to her. She let her eyes pick out individual features: the eyes were hard to make out, as they were wearing some sort of shaded goggles over them, but the nose was practically a ball just underneath the bridge of the goggles, nostrils on the underside and so close to the face that they were almost invisible. Thin lips dropped far from the nose, almost to the chin; hairless heads – and, as near as she could tell, bodies – very slightly webbed hands with three fingers and a thumb. Bluish-green or greenish-gray skin, earholes but just a series of bony ridges starting where the normal ‘ear’ would be and wrapping around the back of the head to the other earhole. Two of them had three ridges; the other had five.

“Rektarians!” she exclaimed out loud as she placed them.

They looked up from their datatabs. One of them cocked their head at her curiously and glanced at the other two. One of the others – the one with five ridges – took a step closer to her.

{{You know us?}} they asked in Altean, their accent almost making the words indistinguishable.

{{Yes!}} she replied triumphantly. {{A race of great scientists and genetic engineers!}}

The Rektarian smiled like they weren’t sure this was how smiling was accomplished. {{Yes. This is us. We are of Rektar. You are of Altea?}}

She nodded. {{I am. I am…}} She hesitated. By tradition, she should identify herself as royalty, demand to speak with someone in command. But it occurred to her: they were the Rektarians’ _prisoners_. Which didn’t make sense to her. She’d never heard of Rektarians taking prisoners before; in fact, they were notoriously pacifistic. {{…confused,}} she finished instead.

{{Yes. This is not surprise.}} Their Altean needed work, but given that it was essentially a dead language, she couldn’t blame them for that.

{{I thought you were pacifists? I thought Rektarians didn’t take prisoners.}}

They shook their head. {{You are not prisoner. You can go.}}

She smiled. {{Thank you! Then why…?}}

But apparently they weren’t done. {{…after you have performed.}}

She blinked. {{Performed?}}

{{Necessary,}} they said. {{Very necessary. Few Alteans left.}} They looked to Shiro and sighed. {{We saw you. Hoped there would be pair. Unfortunate. But there is still hope for Alteans. Few left, but enough. Viable population.}}

She felt her blood drain and her heart surge. {{There are other Alteans? Where?! I have to find them!}}

They looked back to her. {{Yes, this would be ideal. But for now, I suppose there is no need for performance. There is nothing viable to…}}

One of the others waved at them and called out something in Rektarian, and they returned to the duo to speak alone.

“Explain Rektarians to me?” Shiro asked quietly. His universal translator must have been keeping up with the Altean being used.

She answered him in whispers. “Great scientists, like the Olkari, but for biology and genetics. Preservers, pacifists – I still can’t figure out why we’re prisoners – but they shouldn’t hurt us. At least, ten thousand deca-phoebs ago, they wouldn’t have.”

“A lot can change in all that time,” he commented gently.

“Don’t remind me. I don’t understand what this is about a ‘performance’ though.”

“Are they bored?” he asked. “They should have grabbed Lance then; he’s a lot more entertaining than I am.”

“More importantly, they claimed there are _other Alteans_. Somewhere out there, there are more of my people, Shiro!”

“I heard. We’ll find them,” he promised her.

“Yes, we will,” she replied with determination. “Anyway, their being Rektarian does explain a _few_ things: they’re sort of… oddly old-fashioned. They believe – not entirely without cause, of course – that there is wisdom to the old traditions and ways.”

“So they learn languages on their own, instead of relying on translator technology.”

She nodded. “Exactly. I guess when your primary work is dealing with living beings, you learn that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” She chuckled thinly. “If the translator breaks, you won’t be able to communicate, unless you already know some of the language. On the other hand, they’re often so focused on their passion for genetic engineering that they don’t put the work into learning other things that they maybe should.”

“Uh, maybe I shouldn’t be asking this, but when you say ‘genetic engineering’…?”

It just now occurred to her how that might sound to him, to _Shiro_ of all people, having been a living experiment of Haggar’s for so long. “Oh, they’ve never done anything like… I mean, as far as I know, they haven’t… They’re not…” She didn’t know how to bring it up without _bringing it up_ , so in the end she settled for, “They’re not _her_.”

He nodded. “I hope you’re right. Ten thousand ye-… er, deca-phoebs.”

She looked back to the trio. They were comparing their two datatabs. They weren’t the transparent kind she was used to, so she couldn’t see what they were looking at, but they were clearly very excited about it.

The five-ridged one turned back to her, a wider and even more unsettling smile on their face. {{Yes, performance! Oh, this is excellent! Better still if Altean pair, but this is rare in Earthling! So rare! And very uncommon in Altean! Good match! Performance necessary!}}

{{Slow down,}} she said, putting on a gentle, more diplomatic smile. {{What sort of performance? We aren’t performers.}}

{{You will be,}} they said with great confidence. {{We make sure of it. Yes, you cannot leave until performance, at least. Better still if you are stay until delivery.}}

{{Delivery?! What delivery?}} She was starting to get a very, very bad feeling.

Shiro piped up, “Delivery? Performance? None of this makes any sense!”

One of the three-ridged Rektarians stepped forward. Apparently, they thought that he didn’t understand because it wasn’t in his language. This one’s English was better, more understandable, though still far from perfect. “You are not same species. Regrettable. Match pair be better. But you are match something rare, something beautiful, something maybe necessary to entire universe. Performance necessary.”

“ _What_ performance?” Shiro insisted.

“Mating.”

There was a silence. The Rektarians looked very pleased with themselves.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” She hadn’t planned for her voice to come out booming like that; it had just erupted from her lungs with the same force that seemed to have propelled all her blood and most of her body’s heat into her cheeks. “You can’t just kidnap people and force them to… to…!”

{{Necessary,}} the five-ridged Rektarian insisted at the same time the other one said it in English.

“ _Not_ necessary,” Shiro insisted from his chair.

“Very necessary,” the designated English translator insisted. “Good food for you while with us. Good sleep. Protected. Safe. No one finds you.”

“Our team will find us,” Shiro informed him.

“No one finds you,” he repeated as if it were supposed to be a comfort.

“We’re not mating!” Allura yelled at all three of them. “And we shouldn’t have to! You’re _genetic engineers!_ You shouldn’t need to rely on something like… like _that_.”

Shiro took her cue. “R-right. Can’t we just… donate some… bodily fluid or whatever and then go? I mean, I’d rather not be a deadbeat dad, but we kind of have a universe we’re supposed to be saving.”

The “deadbeat dad” phrase threw the Rektarians (about as much as it threw Allura, honestly; what was the point of beating something dead? What did being a father have to do with it?), but the five-ridged one shook their head and said something in their own language. The appointed translator informed them, “Necessary match maybe not transfer by science. Also, offspring viability greater through natural methods. We provide help for make fertile, you,” they were looking at Shiro, “can leave when she is impregnated. You,” to Allura now, “can leave when fetal viability reach 90%; we can transfer to incubation.”

“No, we’ll leave _now_ ,” she growled at them, “because you can’t make us do this.”

“Necessary,” they repeated in English and Altean.

"Hey, how about this,” Shiro spoke up, “you let us out of these chairs and keep us in a room together. If we haven't mated after a couple of vargas, you let us go.”

The three Rektarians exchanged a glance. “Two movements.”

_Ah ha! We’re bargaining at least. Clever, Shiro_. Allura latched onto the opportunity. “Three vargas.”

“One movement and also half.”

Coran fancied himself a haggler when it came to swap moons, but Allura was a _negotiator_ , trained in it by the best – and some of the scariest – tutors in the galaxy. And she was angry, aghast, absolutely _outraged_ by the sheer, unmitigated gall on display here. _You kidnap us and tell us you won’t let us leave until Shiro impregnates me?! Go stuff your head in a black hole if you think that’ll work!_

Granted, if she were _forced_ to choose a paladin to… do that with, she could hardly have chosen better. Shiro would be… well, it wouldn’t matter what he would be like because she wasn’t going to find out. She was still angry that these people thought they could make her have sex with anyone, and just to satisfy their own scientific curiosities.

They wouldn’t budge any lower than a quintant. She settled for that. _Twenty vargas and we’ll be home_. She looked to Shiro as the Rektarians approached their chairs. _Actually, we can be home a lot sooner; as soon as they undo these straps…_

But then, with a touch of what looked like a small stylus, the world went black again.

When he woke up – again, still feeling like he’d had the worst night of sleep in his life (and, to be fair, there were a long list of contenders for that title, between all-nighters at the Garrison and night terrors throwing him, screaming, from sleep in his bunk on the Castle) – he was in what looked like a nice, impersonal hotel room. He was lying on the bed, and, as he sat up and looked around, Princess Allura was lying next to him.

In nothing but a bra and panties.

He whipped around fast, throwing his legs over the edge of the bed. He closed his eyes, not wanting to look down at himself, not wanting to see what his mind was already telling him was exactly the case. _I’m only in my underwear, too, aren’t I?_ He opened his eyes and made himself verify: yup, nothing but his boxer briefs. He heaved a sigh.

He looked around the room while the princess was still out. The walls either side of the bed were broken up into what looked like drawers. He rose and went to pull one out; it reacted to his hand coming near it and opened automatically to reveal…

_Whoa!_ He jerked his hand away and the drawer closed, but the motion activated the drawer below it to open and reveal even more… accessories. _Well, never let it be said the Rektarians don’t want us to have fun._

Sex toys of colors, sizes, and shapes he’d never even have thought of, various tubes of assorted… lubricants, he assumed? That was just in those two drawers. He wasn’t even about to investigate the others. He backed away and the drawer shut itself.

There was a table and two chairs, presumably for when they’d be fed. It was pushed over to one wall and bolted in place. (Well, the chairs could move, but the table wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.) He saw only one obvious door and headed for it.

It opened on a bathroom – shower, toilet, sink, mirror – and the walls of it were deliberately opaque, smoky, ensuring privacy. _No wonder I haven’t seen any cameras_ , he thought, _they must be able to see through the walls somehow. They don’t_ need _cameras in here when they can just watch us like we’re in some sort of plastic hamster cage._ The walls looked solid enough to him, but the fact that the small bathroom was so specifically _not_ transparent showed the truth well enough.

He walked back out and heard the princess gasp. She was sitting up in bed now, hand over her mouth as she looked straight at him.

He blushed and looked away. He ought to be embarrassed, but that wasn’t actually the first thing he thought of. His mind went straight to his scars.

He’d never wanted her to see them. Never wanted any of them to, because they drew attention and they… reminded everyone who saw them. Oh, sure, some of them were of fonder, more far-off memories, back on Earth: a bike accident when he was twelve, a bad hit in training when he’d been cocky. But far too many of his scars were from the Arena, from when survival was the only duty he had and he’d obeyed it precisely.

“Sorry, it… wasn’t my idea,” he muttered.

Her hand lowered and she sighed. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and caught her blushing. Maybe she wasn’t focusing on the scars after all. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. “No, I know. And it’s not your fault. But twenty vargas and we’re out of here.” She scratched at her arm idly.

The motion made him check his own (his still flesh-and-blood one), and he caught sight of a tiny red dot. “We were injected with something. Is that what made us lose consciousness?”

“Doubtful.” She seemed to realize what she was doing and made herself stop. “They weren’t close enough to inject us with anything when we were in the battle, and we still wound up here. I guess they _have_ been working on some of their other tech.”

“Then what would they… Oh.”

“Oh?” she prompted.

“They said they’d help us, uh… be fertile.”

Allura sniffed. “Altean fertility is not as simple as…”

“You said yourself they’re genetic engineers, great biological scientists. And they know Alteans well enough to know how to speak your language. Maybe they found a way?” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We pad around in our skivvies for a quintant, then head home. Assuming the team doesn’t find us before then.”

“I’m not sure I want them to,” she mumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

He laughed a little. “Understood. Uh, I can… look somewhere else if you’d rather I not…”

“N-no, it’s okay. It’d be too difficult to manage for a full quintant and it’s pointless now. You’ve already seen me.”

“I’m sorry, Princess.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Shiro.” She looked around and noticed the drawers in the wall. “Oh, what’s in these?”

“Uhhh, you might not want to open those,” he warned her, but she had already sprung off the bed and reached for one.

She shrieked and went crimson down to her shoulders. “By the Ancients, that’s…!”

He cleared his throat and knocked on the nearest wall, leaning in to say, “I don’t suppose we could get a deck of cards?”

“Nothing? Again?!” Keith was on the verge of having a fit.

“No, no,” Hunk told him. “Nothing _still_. STILL nothing because ‘again’ would imply that we had something at some point.”

“If you want to tear your hair out,” Lance said, leaning towards Keith, “I volunteer to help. Anything’s better than the mullet.”

“SHUT UP,” he snarled, storming off the bridge.

“Lance,” Coran began wearily.

He waited until Keith was gone to defend himself. “Look, better he be angry at me ‘cause, well, how do you be angry at… at this?” He gestured to Hunk’s station and the whole lot of nothing on his screen. “They just disappeared, gone from the face of the whole universe!”

“And that should be impossible,” Pidge commented from her station. “Even with what we know now about the Lions and alchemy and all the rest of that, no one should be able to just _disappear_. They have to be somewhere, and we’ll find them eventually.”

“But in the meantime, it’s super frustrating!” Lance shot back. He took a moment to calm himself down. “Keith getting pissed at _me_ means he might stick around and argue with me, which means he’s sliiiiiightly less likely to go get in Red and…”

They all watched on the main screen as the Red Lion tore out into the darkness of space at top speed, grew small, and then disappeared from easy view.

“Dammit, Keith,” Lance groaned.

She wasn’t sure how Shiro had convinced the Rektarians to give them the cards, but she was glad for it. She was even starting to forget that she was in almost nothing, nearly her entire body on display for Shiro and whoever else was watching through the walls.

Baring so much skin to someone she wasn’t intimate with was _deeply_ embarrassing, but then so was seeing so much of Shiro. And he was clearly embarrassed as well, though, as usual, doing a good job at trying to keep things calm. As the Black Paladin, he was supposed to be in control at all times. He was showing just how apt that description was for him.

They were sitting at the table and he was teaching her an Earth card game. He’d had to come up with some modifications because the cards weren’t quite what he was used to, but it was a simple game, easy to adapt, and she was enjoying herself. She’d already taught him Kings and Priests, then tromped him thrice at it (though he had, unexpectedly, won that last game, prompting her to suggest it was his turn to teach).

After some prodding, the Rektarians had provided a countdown clock on one of the walls. A little over fifteen vargas to go.

Shiro knocked on the wall. “Hey, some water would be nice? Princess?”

“Oh, yes, please,” she said pleasantly.

An opening appeared in the wall after a moment, and a tray slid out onto the table with two glasses and a pitcher of ice water.

“Thank you,” Shiro said. He picked up a glass. “Say when.”

Her brow furrowed. “Huh?”

He was pouring water into the glass. “Say when it’s full enough for you.”

“Oh! When, when!” she rushed to say, as the glass was getting quite full.

He laughed and handed it over to her. “You can just say ‘that’s good,’ or ‘that’ll do’ or something like that. You don’t have to actually say ‘when’.”

“But you said to.” She took a drink.

“No, that’s not… Though that reminds me! I’ve been meaning to teach you some Japanese.”

“Japanese?”

“One of the other languages of Earth. It’s not _all_ English. I’m Japanese-American; my parents taught me Japanese at home.” He took a drink himself now.

“Oh! So this is a language only you know?”

“Uh, among the other paladins, maybe? Pidge might have picked up some, if she’s watched even half as much anime as her brother. Keith knows some swear words, but I doubt he could put together a decent sentence.”

She laughed. “Yes, do teach me!”

He grinned at her from over his glass. “You just don’t want me kicking your ass at another card game.”

“I beat you fair and square at Kings and Priests three times.”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that you suggested changing games as soon as I won once.”

“So how do you say ‘hello’ in Japanese?” she asked.

He laughed, and she found herself wondering, _How often do I get to hear Shiro laugh?_ They’d all laughed before, the whole team, but _just_ Shiro, alone like this? She couldn’t think of a time when she’d heard him laugh alone. She decided she liked it. Well, she was always happy when a friend or team member was, but specifically the sound of Shiro laughing was nice. She’d remember that.

“Well, there are lots of ways, depending on the time of day,” he told her. “Let’s start with…”

She focused on the sound of his voice now, and on the words he was saying. Aside from the fact that they were both nearly naked and were being held prisoner by mad scientists (essentially), this was actually turning out to be quite a nice way to spend the quintant.

It didn’t surprise Shiro that Allura was a quick study with languages. She taught him some Altean in return for the Japanese, even though he had a translator now. “Just in case they break down,” she told him with a smile.

He learned that Altean had a single standard ‘hello’ that was merely modified by what time of day it was, much like the English “good morning/afternoon/evening,” except that Alteans split the day into fives ( _Thus ‘ **quin** tant’?_ he wondered), so there were a couple more to learn than he was used to. But they were easy enough to pick up.

Allura found entirely separate greetings for each time of day – and only three? – to be too confusing, so he gave her “permission” to just use _konnichiwa_ and leave it at that. She worried that it might offend him for her to ‘abuse’ his language like that, but he assured her he took no offense, and she eased down.

Food showed up through the same slot in the wall that the water and deck of cards had been delivered. He had no idea what it was, but it was better than food goo (though he wouldn’t say so where Coran or the princess could hear him). He continued teaching her Japanese.

“So, say hello to me,” he prompted her.

“You’re sure it’s…?”

“It’s _fine_. Here, I’ll be more specific: say ‘Good afternoon’ to me.”

“ _Konnichiwa, Shiro._ ”

He cleared his throat. “Good, but try using my full name.”

She cocked her head. “Your full name?”

He snorted and then laughed. “You forgot, didn’t you? Don’t be afraid to admit it!”

“I’m _not_ afraid,” she replied huffily. “…but I did forget. It’s not Shiro?”

He shook his head. “That’s a nickname. My full name is Takashi Shirogane.”

“Oh! That’s right, I remember when you first introduced yourself… I’m so sorry I forgot!”

“Don’t be; I’m not sure Keith remembers my full name, even.”

She laughed, and it was such a _delightful_ sound, literally full of delight, and so much so that it was contagious. He couldn’t help beaming.

“So, try again. Oh! One thing though: Japanese give family name first, then the given name.”

She considered that. “ _Konnichiwa, Shirogane Takashi_.”

“There you go! I mean, you still wouldn’t say that, but…” 

“I did it wrong?” She was confused.

“No, no! It’s right, but you’d only use my full name under very specific circumstances. Normally you’d use my family name and then an appropriate signifier like _-san_. You might use _-kun_ , given how well we know each other and the fact that you’re my superior.”

That made her frown. “I don’t want to be your superior.”

“Well, too bad, because you are.”

“Could I use ‘ _Shiro-kun_ ’?”

“You… could. It’d be very informal.”

“What about ‘ _Takashi-kun_ ’?”

_Oh hell_. Something about the way she said his name made his heart skip. He hadn’t really noticed it when she’d been saying the full phrase, probably because it sounded weird and distant to his ears, like she was singling him out for some reason. But now, when it was just that…

He cleared his throat. “Definitely not.”

“Why not?” She was very curious.

“Well, uh, you might be able to get away with it, depending where you were. Some places are still very old-fashioned. According to the old ways, given names are something to be used only by family and _very_ close friends. Like, your very best friend, or a boyfriend or girlfriend,” he told her. “It shows a degree of intimacy that’s…”

He shut up instantly. He could feel his face heating and he could see her own cheeks getting red. “Intimacy” was definitely the _wrong_ word to use at the moment.

He couldn’t help his eyes flying to the bed. It was very large, and he remembered it being comfortable from the very brief time he was on it. But he couldn’t look at it as someplace to sleep, not knowing what purpose the Rektarians intended them to use it for. All he could see in his mind when he looked at it was the sleeping form of Princess Allura lying next to him, peaceful and mostly naked.

He tore his eyes away, feeling ashamed for having brought up a word that could conjure those sorts of images. “I’m sorry. Let’s, uh… move on to something else.” He decided to teach her the words for lion, team, teammate, princess, and castle. That last one caught her attention, of course.

“Your name means ‘castle’?! Or… well, your nickname.”

“Eh, not really?” he hedged. “It just sounds like it. My surname translates to ‘white metal,’ so the character used for ‘shiro’ there means ‘white’. But the word for castle is also pronounced ‘shiro,’ it just uses a different character. _That_ character means ‘castle’. But the ‘castle’ character isn’t the one I use.”

“Oh, interesting. In Altean, all words relating to royalty take the Crown character before them, to indicate that status. So ‘castle’ would properly be ‘Crown’ and then the appropriate character. In the case of the Castle of Lions, it’s a _Ruloxian_ -class flagship, so it would be ‘Crown Flagship Ru-class’.”

“‘…of Lions’? he asked.

She nodded. “Yes, actually. A literal translation of the characters would be ‘Crown Flagship Ru-class Designate Lions.’ We don’t actually use ‘of’, that’s the universal translator making adjustments.”

“I see.”

She paused and then giggled. “Your name is ‘white’ but you’re the Black Paladin.”

“Maybe I should tell you about yin and yang.”

“Who’re they?”

“Not who, what. It’s the idea of duality, of two parts of a whole. Black and white, female and male, moon and sun, hidden or out in the open. And it’s the idea that those two parts need each other to exist, that they balance and complement each other, support each other’s strengths and shore up each other’s weaknesses.”

“Like a pairing. Two separates coming together.”

“Ehh, a little. But it’s more than that. The separates aren’t really separate.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Here, hold your hand out, flat, like this.” He demonstrated with his left hand, flat but palm facing her. “Put your hand against mine.”

She did so. Her hands weren’t as smooth as he might’ve expected a princess’s to be, but then this princess had learned to fight when she was still a child, apparently. He thought his own hand was probably rougher than hers.

“This is what you’re talking about, right? Two hands pressed together, but each still their own hand, able to be pulled back without disturbing the other.”

She nodded.

“Yin and yang are more like this.” He threaded his fingers through hers, held her hand lightly. She responded in kind. “Interconnected. You can’t take one away without disrupting the other. Actually, you wouldn’t be able to separate them at all. They’re connected; even when you think you only have one, there’s still some part of the other contained within them. They’re _impossible_ to truly separate.”

She looked from their joined hands to his face. “I see.”

And, for a moment, he lost himself in her eyes. Those fabulous, strange, blue eyes with the pink pupils. Framed by dark lashes and those little pink marks. He’d never been able to take the time to just stare at them, to note the subtle shades and hues of blue, to fall into them like they were the most pristine ocean. They weren’t quite like an Earth ocean blue though. Closer to a summer sky, really. _I wonder if Altean oceans were this color. Or Altean skies?_ He couldn’t ask her, of course, but he wanted to; the question perched itself on his tongue.

And then whatever spell was holding him broke and he cleared his throat and they pulled their hands away from each other. “So, you are white and black both,” she said hastily, setting them back on their subject. “Fitting.”

“I try,” he joked weakly. “How about you teach me some Altean?” Because he needed a distraction and needed it _now_. He needed something else to think of than impossibly beautiful eyes.

She lost at Snap again.

“You did this deliberately,” she said as he gathered up the cards to shuffle.

“What, win? Yes, that’s the idea.”

“No, teaching me this ‘Snap’ game instead of some other game. You picked the game you’re best at.”

“Oh, and you didn’t do the same thing with Kings and Priests?” he asked.

“Well, of course I did, but it’s okay when _I_ do it.”

He laughed and she smiled. “Well, I can teach you another game if you like.”

“Yes, please.”

“I think it’ll be easier to adapt to these cards, too, actually. It’s called poker.”

She spent more time learning the combinations than anything else, but she started to see the pattern to it. And then Shiro taught her how to play. He said, “There are lots of different variants of poker, but I’m going to teach you Texas Hold ‘Em. I like how it gives us some of the same cards to play with.” She hadn’t understood that until he’d illustrated it and then she thought it was an interesting tack, also. Some things were universal to both sides, but some things were just for you. They could be advantages or disadvantages, and your opponent didn’t know which.

“You’re right, I think I do like this.”

“I thought you would. Gives you an excuse to lie,” he teased.

“I’m going to throw these cards at your head.”

“That would mean you folded and I win.”

She didn’t throw the cards.

“What are the other variants like?” she asked as they played.

“Well, there’s a lot of them. The first one I learned was where all the players get five cards, with no shared ones.”

“I don’t think I’d like that as well.”

“And don’t let anyone talk you into playing strip poker. Under any circumstances.”

The way he phrased that piqued her curiosity, of course. “Well now we _have_ to,” she told him.

He blushed. “We, uh… can’t right now, actually.”

“Why not? Is the table not big enough?” She assumed it involved laying the cards down in some sort of strip formation, perhaps a long one if table space was a concern. She nearly suggested sitting on the bed to play – Ancients knew it was big enough – but she wasn’t about to suggest the bed for _anything_ , not even sleeping. It was a lurking reminder of what was expected of them, and she avoided it as a matter of course. She just wanted to pretend it didn’t even exist.

“Uh, no. It’s _strip_ poker.” He said that as if he expected her to get it.

She just waited for him to explain.

His cheeks got redder. “Remember I told you about betting? How normally there would be little chips designating different amounts of money?”

She nodded.

“In strip poker, you don’t play for money or with the chips. You bet your clothes.”

Her eyes widened. “And… when you lose a hand…?”

“You forfeit those clothes. Immediately. The idea is that whoever’s got the most clothes on at the end wins.”

She looked down at herself as if anything about what she was – or, more accurately, _wasn’t_ – wearing had changed. If she had to remove even a single article of what little clothing remained…

Then she looked to Shiro. He had literally one piece of clothing on. That’s it. One piece of cloth between him and total immodesty. And she couldn’t help wondering… _I mean, I’ve seen all the rest of him. What does he look like underneath the…_?

She put an immediate stop to that thought line. It was _highly_ improper. _Of course, if the Rektarians hadn’t stripped us in the first place, I wouldn’t even have thought of such a thing._ Yes, it was easier to blame the Rektarians than to blame good, noble, unfairly-sexy Shiro… or her own desires.

“Is this a common variant?”

“Usually only when people get drunk.”

She set her cards down. “Let’s go back to Snap.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were enjoying Texas Hold ‘Em?”

“I need to learn how to beat you at your own game,” she replied primly. “But thank you; the break was nice.” And she wanted to turn her mind away from the very idea of Shiro losing the last scrap of dignity that had been allowed to him… or how she might have reacted if that had happened.

They were down to six vargas left when he noticed the change.

It’d been a nice, quiet quintant, honestly. When you factored out the whole “aliens want us to mate” thing (and the related “we have nothing to wear but our underwear” aspect), it was almost a vacation. Princess Allura had pointed out that it took being held captive by aliens for either one of them to take a vacation, and they’d both laughed so hard they’d cried.

They were back to playing Snap now, and she was winning, of course. Princess Allura set out to win everything she tried her dainty-yet-surprisingly-strong hand at.

But something was… different. He paused.

“Hey, Princess, does the air… smell weird to you?”

“Don’t try to distract me,” she said.

“No, seriously.” He set his hand down to show he really wasn’t trying to cheat at the game, and rose from the table, sniffing at the air curiously.

“No, it doe-… wait.” She sniffed, too. “Maybe?”

He looked around, trying to find the source of the scent. It was… exotic but familiar somehow, musky, teetering on the verge of unpleasant but not quite tipping over. It was something he could have tolerated in small doses, but it felt like he was being made to bathe in it.

He walked away from the table to stand in the center of the room (well, slightly off-center; the bed was large and took up a lot of space). He scanned around, trying to figure out what was different.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I…” He turned back to address Al-… the princess.

…and found her staring at him, rapt. She blinked a little and blushed a lot. “Sorry, I was just…” She cleared her throat. “I do think the air smells different, you’re correct.”

_She’s adorable_ , he found himself thinking, not even upset that she’d been staring at him. His eyes scanned down what he could see of her, which was, of course, quite a lot. _More than just adorable._

That was when something clicked for him.

Of course Princess Allura was gorgeous, he’d thought so for a long time. It’d been relatively easy to corral such thoughts and tuck them away. But that rich, musky scent was everywhere, and now, suddenly, after vargas and vargas of “Yeah, she’s beautiful, but I’m more interested in kicking her ass at this card game or getting her to pronounce my name properly,” he was having trouble unsticking his eyes from her body?

“Hey, uh… Rektarians?” he said out loud, raising his voice a little and trusting they’d hear him. “You didn’t just _gas us_ with something, did you?”

A quick glance back to Allura – gorgeous, captivating Allura – showed her folding her arms as anger overcame… whatever else was going on with her.

There was a pause and then a voice he recognized from earlier – this particular person must have the best English skills, he figured – came out of some hidden speaker. “Pheromones.”

“Cheating.”

“Not cheating. Pheromones not outlawed by stated treaty.”

He sighed, but Allura launched right into a proper tirade. “Of course it’s cheating! You’re trying to _make_ us mate when we’ve already said we don’t want to! It’s bad enough that you stripped us naked and are holding us against our wills! But this is just… IT IS CHEATING!”

“Necessary,” and the Rektarian at least had the decency to sound embarrassed. “Performance necessary. For…”

“Science and the good of the universe or whatever your excuse is this time,” she huffed. “How would _you_ like it if you were shoved in a room and told to mate with someone?!”

There was a pause. “You are both very attractive members of your own species.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” she screamed.

“They’re not wrong,” Shiro murmured before he could help himself. Her legs… those thighs…

Princess Allura shot him a look, eyebrows raised, and he cleared his throat and excused himself to the bathroom, leaving her to shout deprecations and vent her annoyance at the disembodied voice in the ceiling.

_Well, while I’m in here…_ He tried to figure out the shower, but the controls were strange, and he couldn’t get the water to come on for more than a few seconds at a time. He gave up and went to the sink, splashing some cold water over his face and rubbing it back into his hair.

He looked up into the mirror.

It was hard for him to see himself. Sometimes all he could see was the white hair and the scar and the weight of the entire universe in his eyes.

_I wanted so much. I reached out for it and look what happened. Look what I’ve become._

Sometimes he thought Adam had been right, if in the wrong way. He couldn’t have known what was waiting for Shiro out here; he’d just been concerned about the effect of the radiation on an already-degenerating body. He hadn’t known about the Galra Empire and its bloodthirsty tyrant.

But Shiro knew now that he could never have done anything else. He’d known it then, but he felt it was purely about the stars he’d craved for as long as he could remember, one last chance to be out there among them before his life’s end. He hadn’t known about Voltron and the Black Lion and Princess Allura.

Shiro couldn’t be anywhere but here. He didn’t _want_ to be anywhere but here, where he could lead his team and protect his pri-… the universe.

He sighed and went to sit on the toilet, since there was nowhere else. He could still hear her out there, yelling at the Rektarians.

At home, on Earth, he’d been considered attractive, but who knew what Alteans went for? He knew she didn’t think much of human ears, but beyond that…? And would she even want someone so literally scarred by war and violence? Did she understand that this was difficult for him, too? That he didn’t need to be drugged up with pheromones to find her appealing? They just made it harder for him to ignore her, harder for him not to stare at her legs and her breasts and the hollow of her throat that he longed to fill with kisses…

He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. He remembered the texture of her hands from earlier and wondered what it would be like for her to touch him, anywhere, just the skin-to-skin contact. What would it be like to have her body pressed against his, her arms around him, her mouth hungry on his?

How would Princess Allura express her desire? Would she be imperious, pressing him down to the bed, seizing his lips, mounting his hips, making him hers? _The one time I wouldn’t mind being conquered…_

Or would she be sweeter than that, exploring him with curiosity and a lust that built more slowly? Would they roll through the sheets giggling like teenagers, aflush with an almost-embarrassed passion? Would she wear her tiara or remove it for him? Did he really care which one, so long as he could take handfuls of her thighs, feel her move against and around him, hear her moan his name?

For all he knew, Alteans made love by doing some ridiculous dance and chanting. He got up to douse himself with more cold water. Just under six vargas to go.

She spent half a varga arguing before, reluctantly, giving up. They’d already been gassed after all; there wasn’t a way to undo it. When the volume died down, Shiro poked his head out of the bathroom. “Safe?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes and fell back into her chair. “As it’ll ever be, I guess.”

He nodded and walked out and Allura felt a lump catch in her throat. It was one thing having Shiro walk around in practically skin-tight clothing – a lot of Altean clothing was like that. It didn’t bother her; he was still covered.

But he was naked – aside from the underwear – and she could watch the way his muscles moved as he walked. She could see exactly the way he’d been sculpted into the perfect form of a man through years of discipline and hard work and, sad to say, battle. The scars were a reminder of that.

She ignored them.

Shiro moved like a man who knew exactly what he could do with his body, and all she could think of was, _Good heavens, what would you do to **mine**?_

She cleared her throat and looked back to the cards. _It’s just the pheromones._ But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t strictly true. They were making things harder for her, but Shiro had always been handsome and well-built. More than that, he’d been kind, thoughtful, and a steadying force for her in an increasingly dizzy universe.

She watched him cross to the table and retake his seat. There was simply no point in pursuing anything, not when they had more important things to focus on. And he’d kept that distance between them, with his constant use of her title.

_I wonder if he’d still call me ‘princess’ if I was in his lap right now?_

She was terribly tempted to find out. _He’d probably use it once, as a sort of surprised protest, and then I’d kiss him, and he’d wrap his arms around me, kiss me back with increasing ferocity – the pheromones have to be affecting him, too, especially given that comment he made – and then he’d pick me up and carry me to the bed…_

Part of her wanted him to be slow, sensual, gentle, and sweet, to take his time kissing her everywhere, exploring every part of her, discovering all the little ways of bringing her joy. She wanted to savor her time with him, explore him in return.

But there was another part of her that wanted him hot, hard, _now_ , almost vicious in pursuit of his desires. She wanted the Black Paladin to lose control, because of her, wanted him out of his head with lust and need. She wanted to watch Shiro succumb to desperate passion and lay the blame for it at her feet. She’d take it, she’d take it all, she’d take _him_ , as much as he could stand…

“Princess?”

_Oh, Ancients help me, it sounds so good._ Had there always been something about the _way_ he said her title, as if he were offering himself up to her, and all she had to do was accept?

“Are you okay?”

She snapped out of her fantasies and cleared her throat. “As okay as I can be, under the circumstances.”

“Understood.” So military still. “Well, we only have a few vargas left. We can do this. Even with the pheromones. Let’s play Kings and Priests.”

“Okay,” she agreed, eager to do anything to shoo away her recent thoughts. “We’ll see if your earlier victory was beginner’s luck or not.” She gathered up the cards to shuffle and tried to minimize her view of his chest.

What would his hands feel like on her? One flesh and blood, the other metal and quintessence? Some of her own quintessence was in that arm now; would it feel like she was touching herself? Had he ever touched her with the prosthetic since they’d made him the new one? She couldn’t remember. Still, she doubted it’d feel like herself; it’d feel like _Shiro_ , which brought her right back to the initial question: what would Shiro’s hands feel like caressing her skin, tracing her markings, taking hold of her body to bring it in alignment with his own?

She crossed her legs under the table.

What would it feel like to have him finger her with his right hand? The metal was warm, she remembered, sort of a distant warmth compared to a normal hand, but the quintessence that powered it kept it from cooling entirely. Hard metal, a sort of glowing warmth, pressed right against her most sensitive erogenous zone?

She licked her lips.

Stroking her, bringing her closer and closer to a release she hadn’t had with someone else in deca-phoebs. Even if you discounted her rather long beauty nap, war with the Galra had made it hard to find a relationship and being royalty made it harder still to have flings. Most unmarried royals and nobles had their “favorites,” their companions who provided a listening ear, a comforting shoulder, and no-commitment sex. But by the time Allura had started trying to pick a favorite, the war was on.

She’d managed a fling or two, despite it all. When you slept with royalty, you expected something in return, but it was hard for anyone to expect anything when every waking moment was devoted to the war effort. But that was so long ago, it was another lifetime. So many lifetimes, and all of them lost to her.

Now she was here and Shiro was here, and she was keenly aware of how long it had been since anyone else had touched her. She rarely even pleasured herself; it felt selfish. But sometimes it helped her sleep, and she told herself that’s why she did it. She told herself it wasn’t because she longed for a lover, a favorite, for _anyone_ to be close to, close enough that she could bury her face in their shoulder and cry out her pain. It wasn’t because she wanted something normal, something fun and joyous and the release and relief of it all.

Ohhh, the sweet release Shiro’s fingers could bring her, she was sure, while he kissed her neck and traced her markings with his tongue, it made her shiver with delight just thinking about it, and…

She blinked as his hand – his right hand – fell atop hers. She’d been right, it didn’t feel anything like her own hand.

“I think you’ve shuffled the cards enough, Princess.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, certainly. Uh… you deal then.” He retrieved his hand and she hastily put the deck down on the table as if glad to be rid of it, as if the deck had infected her with naughty fantasies about her… _the_ Black Paladin.

It’d been so har-… It hadn’t been easy, but they’d made it. The quintant was up, the countdown clock at 0, and a door opened up in the wall. Shiro wasn’t sure the Rektarians’ expressions always tracked to human ones, but this one _definitely_ seemed annoyed.

“Please,” they said. Their voice was not the English translator’s. “Please, necessary.”

“Absolutely not.” Allura stood and put her hands on her hips, and the motion drew Shiro’s gaze there, made him wonder what it would be like to have _his_ hands on those hips, to pull her in against him by them, to… _STOP_. It’d been a very difficult few vargas. “ _WE_ decide who we mate with and when. This is unethical and _don’t you dare say ‘necessary’ again_. Just bring us our uniforms and get us out of here.”

The Rektarian in the doorway frowned in disappointment. “Wait here. Clothing comes.” They turned and left. The door closed but remained visible.

“I still can’t believe all of this,” she muttered.

The door opened again, admitting a new Rektarian. Well, new to Shiro and Allura; they seemed very old. They spoke in what Shiro thought was Altean, but his translator wasn’t translating it, for some reason.

Allura gasped in surprise and replied in the same language. To Shiro, she said, “This Rektarian speaks fluent High Altean but can’t speak English at all. I’ve agreed to translate.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

The older Rektarian spoke again in High Altean; Shiro figured it was an older variant or some sort of ceremonial dialect or something.

She gasped. “You know I’m a princess?”

They nodded as they spoke.

Allura translated for him. “They know I’m a princess and say that the younger Rektarians have forgotten a lot about Altea because of its destruction. And they say they want to apologize to me.”

“As they should,” Shiro agreed.

She spoke to the Rektarian again. He heard the word “Voltron,” in there. She hesitated a moment before adding something else. He heard “deca-phoebs.”

The response from their new “friend” contained the word “Zarkon.”

“I recognize that name,” Shiro muttered.

They continued, speaking quickly. They seemed embarrassed, at least.

_Well, you can’t be half as embarrassed as Allura and I are, walking around in just our underwear!_

Allura translated for Shiro. “I asked why they would do this, because the Rektarians I knew of ten thousand deca-phoebs ago would never have dared. They said it’s because of Zarkon, because he destroys everyone and everything that doesn’t bow to him. They figured out some way of remaining hidden and they think their methods are justified because they’re preserving life.”

“Sort of a ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’ kind of thing?” he summed up.

“Something like that.” Her mouth twisted in annoyance before she asked the Rektarian some questions in High Altean. She spread her arms to indicate the bedroom they’d been forced into. He figured she was demanding more of an answer than “the ends justify the means.”

A long string of gobbledygook came tumbling forth from the Rektarian, and likely would have continued had not another Rektarian in a very impressive uniform entered. They glared at the older Rektarian. Shiro couldn’t follow their language any better than High Altean but he knew a dressing down when he saw one.

The older Rektarian said something to Allura and fled.

The new one cleared their throat and pulled out a piece of paper to read from. Unfortunately, they did not seem good at pronunciation. “Yoer yew nee foe err emms…”

“This is painful,” Shiro complained.

The English translator darted in, made a few apologetic bows to the impressive Rektarian and said something. The impressive one huffed and stood there glaring at Shiro and Allura as the translator cleared their throat.

“Your uniforms come. We are raising communication barrier. Call your large cat. It will hear you.”

They’d no sooner said “large cat,” than Shiro closed his eyes and reached out along the bond.

In the Castle of Lions, the Black Lion sat up, no longer the collapsed and broken toy. Her eyes glowed and she _roared_ in triumph. Even if anyone in the Castle had tried to stop her, it would have been impossible. She launched herself out of her hangar and headed for her Paladin.

“Follow her!” Lance demanded.

Coran ignored him; he’d already begun firing up the Castle’s engines.

“And call Keith back!” Hunk put in.

“Yeah, yeah, that, too.”

Allura watched Shiro smile in relief and joy. _He looks good like that_ , she thought. _Younger, happier… there’s so little happiness for either of us._ Her eyes darted to the bed, and she wrested them away with sheer, dogged determination.

“She’s coming,” he said, opening his eyes. “Black’s coming for us. And she’s bringing the Castle.”

She smiled and then looked at the two Rektarians in the doorway. “Well, here’s hoping we’ll be dressed by then?”

The impressive Rektarian didn’t seem pleased with them; they turned and stormed off. “Your uniforms come, yes,” the translator insisted. They were about to go when another Rektarian showed up with both arms full of the various bits of Shiro’s uniform. “Uniform!” the translator declared grandly (and unnecessarily).

“Most of it,” Shiro admitted, looking over the pile that was brought into the room and spilled on the bed. He started getting dressed. _Pity._

Allura’s flight suit arrived next, and then the last few bits of Shiro’s paladin uniform which, she gathered, had fallen out of the first one’s arms in their rush to try to get it all here.

“Head part coming,” the translator added.

“Head p- …oh, our helmets,” she realized. “Good, thank you.”

“Then we take you to airlock, open access, let large cat find you.” They hesitated. “Please think on mating. Necessary.” And then they bolted as if they feared what she’d say to that. _As well they should._

“I don’t think I ever want to hear the word ‘necessary’ again,” she muttered as she got dressed.

“You could use _hitsuyou_ ,” he suggested as he did the same. “It means ‘necessary’ in Japanese.”

“I just might.”

“What was the other Rektarian saying? The one who spoke High Altean? They said a lot before they got interrupted.”

“Oh! Right, sorry. What was the last thing I translated for you?”

“You said they were doing what they were doing because of Zarkon killing anyone who doesn’t fall in line. That they viewed it as… well, _hitsuyou_ ,” he said, catching himself.

She laughed. “Okay, yes. After that, I asked why the two of us, and why they didn’t just take samples from us, as you’d suggested. It’d be more effective and efficient, after all. They replied that they usually do but said that whatever was special about the two of us isn’t something that science can reliably replicate. Then they kind of started babbling about how sexual reproduction occurs the way it does for a reason; there are benefits to fetal and offspring viability. They caught themselves going on, apologized, and they were _just_ _about_ to tell me why they were so interested in us when that stick in the mud in the uniform showed up.”

He groaned. “I would have liked an explanation on that.”

“Yes, I would have as well.” She fastened her suit closed and started fixing her hair back into its bun. By now, she could do it without a mirror. “I’m rather annoyed they got interrupted. They were the only one willing to give us actual answers.”

The door opened again – the delivery of their helmets. They each took theirs and the Rektarian standing there said, “Please, this way.”

Allura shared a glance with Shiro, both of them now back in their respective uniforms, and followed after them.

“Where have you two been?!”

“Are you alright?”

“What happened?”

“We’re okay, just… tired,” Shiro said, trying to calm them all down.

Coran was, of course, focused on Allura. “Princess, what…?”

She took a breath before answering. “We were held captive by a technologically-advanced race. They made demands of us, and we refused to give in. After a quintant, they let us go.”

“Just like that?” Keith was suspicious. Coran shared his suspicion.

“They aren’t really bad guys,” Shiro explained. “They just have very… different ways of looking at things. They thought they were doing something good; we had to explain that they weren’t. That’s all.”

“What good did they think they were doing?” Hunk wanted to know. “Just getting you out of the battle?”

“And what did they want?” Lance asked.

“It’s not important,” Allura answered, a touch too quickly for Coran’s liking. He narrowed his eyes at her. She was definitely hiding something, or he’d be a yalmor’s uncle. But something else was bothering him. Something about her _and_ Shiro. He just couldn’t put his finger on it yet.

“The important thing is we’re free, we’re safe, and we’re all back together,” Shiro put in.

Allura nodded. “Let’s lay in a course for Olkarion; the Castle could use some repairs, and maybe some upgrades. I’m for a shower and some sleep.”

“Yeah, same here. You should all rest up, too.”

Pidge was agitated. No, ‘excited’ was probably the proper word. “No, no, wait! The Black Lion disappeared and then reappeared with you two in it! Were these aliens in another pocket dimension then? Did Slav build it for them? What was their tech like?”

Shiro sighed. “Pidge…”

But Allura indulged her. “It probably was something very like a pocket dimension, but we can’t be sure. They just said we were hidden and safe. They didn’t explain anything to us. I don’t think Slav built it for them; like I said, they were very advanced in many ways. We also never figured out how they managed to kidnap us in the first place.”

“Well, you’re back now,” Keith said. “Go rest.”

“Yeah, I’ll whip up some food for when you wake up,” Hunk told them. “You can just come browse through the kitchen when you’re hungry.”

Shiro smiled at him. “Thank you. All of you.”

He turned and started to leave, but Allura had begun the same motion and the two of them nearly walked into each other. They both jumped back like startled wrenlops.

“After you, Princess,” Shiro said gallantly.

“Oh, uh… th-thank you. Yes.” She hurried out and Shiro waited until the door had closed behind her before he even began his own departure.

Coran looked at the other paladins.

“Something happened,” Keith said.

“Duh,” Lance put in. “They’re normally more informative.”

“Then why’d you tell them to go rest?” Hunk asked Keith.

“Did you hear them? They _both_ wanted to go to sleep. SHIRO AND ALLURA WANT TO SLEEP? Since when? Neither of them sleep much, or even want to try.”

“Are you saying that’s _not_ Shiro and Allura?” Hunk asked, eyes widening.

“No, it definitely is,” Pidge declared. “They match the Castle scans exactly and the Black Lion wouldn’t go fetch just _anyone_. It’s Shiro and Allura, but they must have gone through something really weird… or really bad.”

“Yeah, they weren’t acting normal at all,” Lance mused.

That was when Coran realized: Shiro and Allura had been standing apart. Over time, they’d fallen into an easy, shared leadership, and they often stood beside each other. If there was a reason to separate – like needing to be at two different stations – they would, but they drifted together otherwise.

And then there was that bit when they’d turned to go. It was like they were afraid of even touching each other. Shiro hadn’t even watched Allura leave, turning his eyes away from her back.

“Something’s going on,” Coran agreed. “And we’ll figure out what it is.”

Shiro took the coldest shower he could stand. The pheromones were still affecting him, still reminding him every time he looked at (or thought about) the princess that she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen, that she was fierce and intelligent and brave and… _Stop STOP._

He’d had these thoughts before, and they’d been easy to deal with then. After a day of watching her walk and stretch, of playing cards together and teaching her Japanese, of just… existing around her (and doing that while they were both nearly naked), the thoughts were harder to push away. That was before getting into the fact that an entire race had decided it was _important_ that the two of them have sex – have kids! – and was willing to artificially crank their libidos up to make it happen.

_I wonder what would have happened if we’d just agreed?_ Well, they’d said they’d have kept one or both of them for a time, and that wouldn’t have worked, they had a universe to save, but… what would it have been like to be with Allura? Even once? Not when she was “forced” to, or drugged, or manipulated – to be with her because she wanted it, wanted _him_ , even with all his scars (both physical and mental). He could picture her, in the bra and panties, laying back on the bed, opening her arms for him, whispering his name – his actual name – in a “come hither” voice.

The cold water wasn’t working so well anymore.

He gave up, braced himself against the shower stall with one hand and took hold of himself with the other. _Just get off, and then maybe it’ll stop being so annoying._ And then he was going to go to sleep and try to forget everything about the shape of Allura’s body, the interesting pink markings all over her skin that seemed to call to him, the sound of her voice as she said his name, her smile and her laugh and the very way she _breathed_ …

It didn’t take him long; his body had been waiting for this release for vargas now. His mind was full of so many fantasies he’d been pushing away that the only hard part was choosing one fantasy to stick with. And he did feel better afterwards. He cleaned up, got out, dried off, and slipped into Castle-issued pajamas before heading back to his room and nearly falling onto his bunk in relief.

Neither of them had even tried to sleep during the last quintant. He’d basically tried to avoid recognizing the bed’s existence in general, given what use they were expected to make of it. So sleep crashed in on him quickly, and he barely had time to register how thankful he was for that before he was out.

Allura luxuriated in a steamy shower, taking her time to wash her hair fully and thoroughly, letting the water seem to wash away the last twenty vargas, even if it was less effective at getting rid of all the pheromones she’d breathed in. _In time_ , she told herself, _they’ll wear off._

But for now, every time she washed part of her body, touched herself in even the most innocent ways, she couldn’t stop herself from wishing it were Shiro’s hands on her instead of her own. _Well, after all that time seeing him practically naked, and then being gassed on top of it? Of course I can’t help being… curious._

Or aroused.

She sighed and leaned back against a wall. She watched the water come down, considered her options, then relented. “Oh fine, but only once,” she said quietly, almost furtively, like someone on a diet allowing themselves _one_ dessert, and afraid of being caught in even so little a transgression. She very deliberately used her right hand, let it slide down wet-slick skin until it was between her legs.

_“Princess…”_

She forbade herself from saying his name out loud as she did this. It was bad enough that her mind was ready with images and sounds of him, already full to the brim of fantasies she’d barely kept at bay. She tried not to imagine Shiro, she tried to conjure something – some _one_ – else, but she gave up quickly. He was who she’d wanted for the last few vargas; perhaps if she satisfied herself with _one_ fantasy of him now, the rest would dissipate like morning dew on juniberries.

She had to hope, anyway.

She let herself remember every line of his body, the way he’d moved, the sound of his voice saying her title – still polite, even then – his smile and his laugh and the very way he _breathed_. His hand on hers to stop her shuffling, the banter they’d shared. Shiro was handsome, at the peak of male human physical perfection (at least, as near as the Castle’s scans could tell), sweet and caring and brave… how could anyone _not_ want him?

Her breath curled through the steam. She bit her lip to keep herself quiet, even though she was in her personal bathroom and couldn’t be overheard. Every sound she made just made it all more real, and she couldn’t have that. It couldn’t be real; that was the point.

She let herself catch her breath, tried not to wonder if Shiro would cuddle with her in the aftermath, if he would hold her in his arms and… _STOP THAT_. Then she finished her shower, stepped into her personal dryer (air-drying her hair alone would have taken too much time), stepped out and pulled on her nightgown. She didn’t bother with her robe, just twisted her hair up, tucked it away into its sleep bonnet, and went straight to bed.

The mice were on their pillow. Were they looking at her funny, perhaps… knowingly? They _were_ mentally linked to her.

“Hush,” she told them, though they had, of course, said nothing. She laid down, and sleep bore her off like a riptide near the Fawdarn Shores.

At the start of the next day cycle, Shiro felt normal and surprisingly refreshed. He quickly found out that was because he’d slept through _two_ quintants, not just one. _Well, I guess I needed it._ He set about his normal routine, fairly certain that the pheromones had worn off and everything was more or less back to normal.

He caught up with Coran on what had happened from the team’s perspective during his and Princess Allura’s… absence. He also dodged more questions; the advisor was every bit as dogged as the princess herself when he wanted to be, and the man clearly wasn’t about to be put off.

Eventually, Shiro said, “You really want to know what happened?”

“Yes!” Coran replied immediately, actually latching onto Shiro’s arm and looking into his face with anticipation.

Shiro leaned forward just a hair. “Ask. The. Princess.” He straightened up again.

Coran let go of him, mouth (and mustache) twisting in annoyance. “You know she won’t say a word she doesn’t want to.”

“Yes, I do,” he replied with a bright smile before adding, more seriously, “I also know that it’s as much her right as mine to decide who knows this information, and I’m not saying a word without her express permission.”

Coran frowned. “Something terrible happened in that place, didn’t it?”

Shiro cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t say ‘terrible.’ In fact, I wouldn’t say anything about it. It’s over now, Coran. Let’s just leave it be. How long until we’re at Olkarion?”

“Without a teludav jump? Another three quintants.”

“Good. That’ll give me a chance to go over the Black Lion and catch up on some things. The team needs to work on melee/long-range partner drills, and… What?” Because he’d caught Coran looking at him funny. Well, funnier than usual.

“They just picked you up out of the Black Lion and made you both disappear,” the advisor whispered tightly. “They dropped us all back in the Castle – including the Black Lion – and in the proper hangars and stations, even!”

“Everything _is_ color-coded,” Shiro murmured.

“Whoever they are, if they can do something like that…” He shook his head. “I don’t like not having them solidly on our side.”

“They’re on their own side, Coran, and they’re going to leave us alone from now on. That’s the important part.” _We are **not** sending a diplomatic party back there._

He frowned. “I don’t like it. None of us liked it. You two are the leaders of Voltron, and you were both just gone. We were all beside ourselves.”

Shiro blinked at the shift, and then softened. He rested his hand on Coran’s shoulder gently. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. It must have been tough, losing the princess like that.”

“Again,” he harrumphed. “I wish she wouldn’t put herself in danger so much. I know why she does, and I know I’d be dashed if I could stop her, but… well, it’s just the foolish wish of an old man, I suppose.”

Coran admitting his age? He must be feeling _really_ upset. “It’s not foolish to want to protect the ones you care for. I wish she’d stay out of danger, too.”

“Because you care for her?” he asked, one eyebrow arched.

Shiro felt like he’d been backed into a corner, but he stayed the course. “Of course. She’s part of the team.”

“Right.”

“I care for everyone here, including you. Do you need some time off? We’re flying on auto-pilot, and I can always send for you if…”

“No, no, I’m fine. Need to keep busy, or I just get maudlin, as I think this shows.” The older man stood up, squared his shoulders, and straightened out his clothes. “You both scared us badly, is all. We all care about the both of you, as well, and beyond that, Voltron needs you. Needs _both_ of you. The universe needs you two.”

It sounded like something a Rektarian would say, and Shiro dropped his hand. “Yes, well, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I get kidnapped.”

Coran barked a laugh. “You do that. I have to get back to work.”

Allura slept for two straight quintants, waking feeling better than she had in ages. The mice were concerned about her, but she just got up, got dressed, got some breakfast (with thanks to Hunk), and set about her day.

Near as she could tell, she was perfectly back to normal, and nothing should be amiss now. She checked in at the bridge first, and nearly walked straight into Shiro ~~’s strong and well-built chest~~. “Oh, sorry!”

His hands started to come up either side of her, but they stopped quickly. “I-I’m sorry,” he said, jumping back a little and putting his hands behind his back. “I didn’t know you were…!”

“I didn’t know either, I was just comingtoseeCoran.” She felt like she had to add the rest of the sentence on quickly, as if someone would get the wrong impression otherwise. She tried to avoid looking at his chest; she had a feeling she’d see it without clothes again, now that she knew exactly what to picture.

“Right, of course, well, I should… go. Do things. I mean like… I have things that need to… I should go.” He cleared his throat.

She walked forward into the bridge enough that he could get around her, and he made good his escape. _So much for everything being normal._

And a glance at Coran told her he knew it, too.

“Well?” he asked. “Shiro refused to tell me what happened. He suggested I ask you.”

“Where are we and how long until we get to Olkarion?”

He sighed. “Without a teludav, three quintants.”

“Oh, I can…”

“No.” Coran was almost immediately in her face. “No, you will _not_. I don’t know what happened when you two were captive, but I know that you had to sleep away two entire quintants to recover from it.”

“And I _am_ recovered, and I’m fine! I’m perfectly able to create a wormhole for us.”

“Let us take the slow way for now, Princess,” he insisted.

“We don’t have time for the slow way,” she replied, summoning the command pillars as she stepped onto her dais.

“Yes, we do. Sometimes that’s all we have the time for.”

“We can rest when we’re on Olkarion.”

“Or we can rest now,” he insisted. “Please?” An idea occurred to him. “You’re always on about how you want to work on your alchemy, but the war has to come first. You could do that now!”

She remembered the bet suddenly: that she would teach Shiro a simple alchemy trick. But that would require being alone with Shiro again. They couldn’t even have a simple “hello, sorry about that, goodbye” sort of conversation right now; how could she be expected to teach him anything?

“I can work on my alchemy when we’re on Olkarion.”

He snorted. “You won’t though. You’ll be in conference with Ryner or the rebels or any of the other various Coalition groups that have started using Olkarion as a base of operations. This is an excellent time to advance your studies.”

She had to give him that one. “Very well.” She gave him a warning glare. “But be careful about gainsaying me in the future.”

He smiled; her warning was not having the desired effect. It was hard to cow a man who’d seen you in diapers. “Yes, Princess.”

It sounded wrong to hear him say it. _I want Shiro to say it again._ She looked away quickly, hoping Coran wouldn’t catch her blushing, and turned to leave. But on her way to the alchemy lab, something occurred to her.

The Rektarian who’d spoken High Altean had said that there was something about them that “science could not reliably replicate.” _If it’s not science…_ She stopped and changed course. She’d have to _start_ with science, of course, but she could take those findings back to the lab and go from there.

_Shiro and I were getting along just fine until the Rektarians interfered and started trying to get us to…_ She shook her head. _They wanted to preserve something we both have. I want to figure out what that is._

It wasn’t useful to the war effort, near as she could tell, though the Rektarians had certainly thought it ne-… _no, what was the word Shiro used?_ Hitsuyou _._ They thought it was for the good of the universe that this something, this unscientific something, be saved.

But even if they were wrong, even if it was nothing useful at all, she still wanted to know. She wanted to know why they’d been put through this, why their relationship had been strained like this. She wanted to understand, and she was going to figure it out. Somehow.

Shiro had been putting them through drill after drill in the last few vargas, pairing up paladins who didn’t normally fight together and setting them against the drones. He took part as well, of course, making sure they all got a chance to learn to work together in twos and threes.

No one complained. It was nice to have their leader back, and they were hardly surprised that his first thought was more training. But it still ate at Keith, who didn’t want to have to prepare for Shiro’s disappearance or demise. If he didn’t prepare for it, it wouldn’t happen. It was a childish way to look at it, but he didn’t want to give up his best friend and the closest thing to family he’d had for most of his life.

He did his training drills though. He liked working with Pidge the best; she was flexible, resourceful, clever. She kept him on his toes and neither of them had anything like “covering fire,” which increased the difficulty.

They all hit the showers afterwards and then Hunk scurried out to start dinner. “Have to have something at least a _little_ special tonight!” he’d called over his shoulder. “Shiro and Allura are back!”

Keith shot Shiro a glance and found him looking… mildly uncomfortable. That was odd. Not the look itself: Keith had seen Shiro look like that a hundred times before. It usually meant he was having a flare-up and didn’t want to admit it. But his disease had been cured by the pods. He wasn’t degenerating anymore, so there shouldn’t be anything _to_ flare up.

He leaned in towards him to ask quietly, “Everything okay?” just the way he had in the old days.

Shiro’s answer back then had usually been that he needed to sit or stop or he’d request Keith run a distraction so he could slip out, if it was really bad. But his answer today was to put on a thin smile and say, “Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Keith frowned. That was the bullshit he’d always given everyone else, the ones who didn’t know, the ones Shiro didn’t see the need to tell. _You’re supposed to tell me everything. You’ve **never** shut me out before. _

And Shiro caught that. It was a two-way street, after all; they knew _each other_. He dropped his voice low. “I really am fine, Keith, I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is there something I can do?” Because he always wanted to _do_ something. Standing around, talking, all of that was bullshit. Action produced results.

“No, buddy. Sorry. Not this time.” Shiro patted his shoulder. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

He walked away, but he might as well have been running.

“Whatever happened is still bugging him.” That was Lance from behind him, making another unnecessary observation.

“I just wish he’d say what it was.”

Lance started laughing.

Keith whirled on him in anger. “WHAT?!”

“It’s just… it’s just funny to hear _you_ say that! KEITH, KING OF NOT TALKING!”

“Shut up, cargo pilot.” It might have had more sting if Lance weren’t, y’know, the Blue Paladin now. He was far above and beyond any cargo – or fighter! – pilot in the Garrison at this point.

In any case, it had no effect. “Look, you’re his closest friend. He’ll come around. Just give him a bit to process. He was asleep for two whole quintants! Give him some time, and then I’m sure he’ll come talk to you.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. This is Shiro we’re talking about, not _you_.”

“Wait a tick,” Pidge put in, joining them suddenly. She showered separately from the rest of them, of course. “Shiro keeps plenty of things to himself.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, “but only the really personal stuff.”

They all blinked at each other.

“Something _personal_ happened down there?” Keith asked. “In there. Whatever. Wherever they were.”

“Maybe,” Pidge mused. “He also keeps things quiet that he worries will have an effect on the team though. My theory is that he and Allura got into some sort of fight.”

“Pfft! No way!” Lance scoffed. “They’re the leaders! They always work together! They’re like… Space Mom and Space Dad!”

“Do you have to put ‘space’ in front of everything?” Keith asked.

“YES. And they’re not fighting.”

Pidge shrugged. “Maybe not. It’s just a theory. Honestly, it’s just a guess right now, based on how they seemed kind of distant from each other when we got them back. I don’t have a lot of data to back it up. Are there any competing theories?”

“You mean ‘wild guesses’?” Lance retorted.

“It’s not ‘wild,’” she protested sullenly.

“What if…” Keith began. When they both looked to him, he fell silent out of old habit. But these were his teammates, even friends by now. The words he wanted to say were hard to get out though, because he didn’t like thinking of this anymore than he liked to think of a time without Shiro in his life. “What if something the aliens did brought up Shiro’s memories of his time in Galra captivity?”

That sobered Lance and Pidge up quickly.

“That’d explain his not wanting to talk about it, but how does Allura fit in?” Pidge asked.

“Maybe he killed some Alteans?” Lance offered weakly. “I mean, in the Arena! When he had to, and there was no choice, and he didn’t know! He was just doing what he had to, and…”

“But we all know how prickly the princess is about her people,” Keith said. “If he killed even a single Altean and she found out about it…”

“And if she didn’t know, he’d tell her,” Pidge added. “He’d apologize to her first chance he got. That may even be what they’re fighting over.”

“So maybe we’re _both_ right?” Keith asked.

She nodded. “He got his memories back, he apologized to her, she’s angry at him and he can’t figure out how to make it right. Meanwhile, she knows they have to work together, and she knows there’s no way not to – he’s the Black Paladin, after all, and she can’t undo a Lion’s choice – so she’s just trying to push him away as much as she can.”

“And of course that hurts him,” Lance said, “‘cause he was just trying to survive and he didn’t even remember it, didn’t know what Alteans were at the time even, and he just wants things to be like they were.”

“And he cares about her, the same way he cares about all of us,” Keith added. “He wouldn’t want her mad at him.” He knew better than anyone else here what it was like when the princess was personally mad at you. It wasn’t pleasant.

“Yeah, this is sounding more and more like a plausible theory,” Pidge said. “We still need data to back it up though.”

“Maybe we can get some more at dinner,” Lance said. “They’ll both have to be there, and he always sits at her right. We can watch them, take some notes.”

“Go talk to Hunk, catch him up to speed on this,” Pidge suggested. “Once we know what we’re working with, we can work on fixing it, but until then, we need to be careful.” She shot Keith a look. “Patience yields focus.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled, heading off. But his mind was whirling on the possibility that Shiro had his lost memories back and that those memories… probably hurt him. He ached for his friend’s pain and he was irritated because, if that was really the problem, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Even if they patched things up between him and Allura, there was nothing Keith could _do_ about events in the past.

Allura hadn’t even thought about the fact that Shiro would be sitting to her right at dinner. Of course he would be, that was his spot, that had always been his spot, since the paladins had first arrived, so it was little surprise she’d forgotten. It was normal now.

_Will anything ever be normal again between us?_

She sat at the head of the table and smiled at the meal Hunk had prepared for them. “Not nutrien?” she asked.

“Not for your first night back!” Hunk declared. “Well, first night you’re awake since you’ve been back.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile. “It looks lovely.” It looked and smelled like Hunk-altered nutrien in different shapes and, somehow, colors, but she trusted Hunk’s culinary expertise by now.

As Hunk was serving everyone, she couldn’t help noticing the other paladins watching her. She pretended not to notice as she laid her napkin in her lap. Coran brought her a water packet and even though it was all they ever drank aboard the Castle (aside from the occasional farre milk or cup of kava), it seemed wrong now. She wanted a glass, and Shiro to pour it for her, and she’d say, “when,” even though she knew better now, just to mess with him, and he’d laugh.

Maybe. If things weren’t so awkward.

They’d only get more awkward soon; she had to ask Shiro if he’d submit to a second full-body scan. The one he’d had when he’d first arrived in the Castle was outdated, and the scan hadn’t shown anything she could pinpoint as similar to her own scans. She’d had the Castle scan her again, as an update; she needed Shiro to do the same. But that would properly require his consent, and that meant talking to him first.

She glanced at him, but he was talking to Hunk as their chef took his seat.

“Welcome home!” Hunk declared, raising his water packet in a toast.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s good to be home,” Shiro replied. They all drank, and then set into their food.

It was delicious, of course, and she told Hunk so. He beamed, always happy that his food had improved someone’s day.

She was still musing over her problem. _We can’t just keep on like this. It’s ridiculous. How are we supposed to lead if we can’t even be in the same room together or carry on a basic conversation?_

Shiro was chatting easily with the other paladins, as normal as anything. Of course, he also wasn’t looking at her. She shook her head a little and ate more.

“Did you have a good and productive day?” Coran asked her.

“Well, I don’t know. It was research, mostly.”

“Research? On what? Anything I can help with?”

“N-no. It’s… sort of a personal curiosity.”

Coran’s eyes narrowed and he leaned in. “Is this ‘personal curiosity’ something to do with…?” He jerked his chin across the table to Shiro’s seat.

“What? Why?” she asked, hoping her expression conveyed how absolutely ludicrous an idea that was. With anyone else, she wouldn’t have worried about it, but Coran knew her too well.

“Because you two have seemed a bit off since you got back, and…”

She sighed. “It _does_ have to do with the kidnapping, but that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with him,” she replied, dropping her voice a little more for the last word. The last thing she wanted was…

“Hm? What about the kidnapping?” Shiro asked.

_That_. Her mind was full of every curse word she could think of, in about half a dozen languages.

And Coran, whose presence she was usually beyond grateful for, spoke up so the whole table could hear. “The princess spent most of her day doing alchemical research on ‘something’ to do with the kidnapping, though she won’t say more than that.”

“It’s a Personal Curiosity,” she repeated, for everyone’s benefit. “And it’s going to stay personal.” She didn’t even _dare_ look at Shiro.

“Is it about how they were able to swoop you two out of Black and then put all of us back here and swoop us away to safety?” Pidge asked. “Because that’s been _killing_ me this whole time!”

“Yeah, it’s a great trick,” Lance agreed, “I’d love to know how they did it.”

She wanted to lie and say that was it. She wanted to take the easy out her team was so unwittingly presenting her with. But… it was one thing not to share something very personal and embarrassing with her team; outright lying to them was something else entirely. Fortunately, there was a third road, courtesy of her diplomatic and political training.

“As would I,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to figure it out though.”

“I’m sure you can, if you keep trying.” That was Shiro. That was Shiro’s voice.

She looked to him when he spoke. Of course she did, that was normal. She couldn’t help it and there was nothing wrong with that.

His smile was a bit uneven, but he was still trying to be encouraging.

She smiled back, then looked to the rest of the table. “Anyway, it’s a personal project. To kill time while we’re on our way to Olkarion. _Someone_ ,” she shot Coran a dark look, “wanted me to rest instead of opening a wormhole so we could be there already.”

“ _Someone_ ,” he shot back, “needs it.”

“We all need it.” That was Shiro again, playing peacekeeper.

“Does that mean no drills tomorrow?” Hunk asked, seizing on the opportunity.

“You can do drills and then rest,” Shiro told him, causing the others (save Keith) to groan.

Allura began to ease down a little. Things were getting back to normal. It took time, that’s all. They’d be fine, eventually. One day she’d be able to see Shiro just as he was and not keep picturing him mostly naked, not keep hearing his laugh – just for her – and not keep seeing his smile. She’d stop fantasizing about things that were never going to happen. They’d go back to the way they had been. It’d be fine.

Shiro looked back to her. “Oh, Princess, can I talk to you for a moment after dinner? In private? It won’t take long.”

So much for being fine. As soon as he asked it, her mind was revving on what they could do when alone together. _I doubt that’s what he means._ Still, part of her wished it would be.

In any case, she nodded. “Of course, Shiro. Excuse me.” She picked up her plate and water packet and headed for the kitchen, not realizing until she got there that the food was only half gone and she still had most of her packet left.

“Why did I…?” _I was anxious to get to the ‘after dinner’ part. To being alone with Shiro._ It occurred to her that walking off with a half-full plate might have hurt Hunk’s feelings, and even though she didn’t feel much like eating anything, she made herself clean her plate for his sake. She drank the rest of her water, too; wasting anything when you were in space was taboo, especially something as precious as water.

She all but fled the kitchen, knowing the others would be bringing their dishes in soon. She cast her mind about for somewhere to talk with Shiro in private. Obviously, her bedroom was right out, even though she and Shiro had talked there before. Only briefly, but they had, and it had been fine. Well, that first time, she had been a little _too_ aware that she had a man in her bedroom who wasn’t her father or Coran or a servant. But after that, it had just been a place, and one she could depend on for security and privacy.

It wouldn’t do. Not now.

In the end, she wound up on the observation deck, looking out at deep space and trying to be as cool and implacable as the cosmic deep. She kept her eyes on the dark as she heard the door open.

“May I?” his voice asked.

“You don’t need to ask. This isn’t a private room.”

“I wanted to err on the side of caution. And if you’d rather be alone right now, I can come back.”

“No, no,” she said, taking a deep breath before she turned around, “we should get this over with.”

He was standing in the doorway still; when she said that, he nodded and stepped forward, enough for the doors to close behind him. “You know what I want to talk about.”

“It’s rather obvious,” she said. “Should I set the EO controls?” Any room in the Castle with closing doors could be locked and set to Emergency Only, making it as private as they could want. Only if an emergency happened – or she changed the setting back – would it open for anyone other than the two of them.

“I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Very well.” She brought up the lights a bit more – they were usually kept off for, well, observing – and frowned at how far he was. “Are you afraid of me, Shiro?”

“No, of course not. I’m… It’s just that…”

She cleared her throat. “After That Quintant,” the only significant one in recent memory, “it feels easier to be apart, doesn’t it?”

He nodded in gratitude. “Yes. And I don’t like that. We’re a team. We’re _all_ a team, but you and I were…”

“And then this happened.”

“And now it all feels impossible. And we can’t have that. Voltron needs us both at 100%, and needs us working together, the way we used to.”

She nodded once. “I agree. What do you suggest?”

“Suggest?” He shrugged. “That we just square up and deal with it, I suppose. It’ll be awkward for a little bit, but, in time, it’ll fade. It’ll be almost like an inside joke we share. ‘Remember that time we were kidnapped by aliens who wanted us to mate?’”

She smiled and played along. “‘And we spent the whole quintant playing cards instead? Remember how many times I won?’”

He frowned a little, but there was a faint sparkle in his eyes. “Not _that_ many times.”

“Yes, that many,” she insisted lightly. “And you taught me Japanese.”

“Some. _Some_ Japanese. But I had to. It was _hitsuyou_.”

She laughed, the first real laugh she’d had since that quintant. “I suppose it was. And I’m glad for it.”

He was smiling. “So am I. It wasn’t all bad. There are worse ways to spend twenty vargas.”

“You’re right.”

“So we’ll just… push it from our minds and focus up on what we need to be doing.”

“Of course. There might still be some unease for a bit, but you’re right: we’ll get over it. We’re both stubborn enough to see it through.”

He coughed faintly. “No offense, Princess, but I think you’re stubborn enough for the both of us there.”

“Watch it,” she warned him playfully. Internally, she marveled at this: it was like they were back to normal. Of course, they were also standing a good twenty paces apart, in a room where the lights were still dim.

“And if I ever say or do anything that upsets or offends you, please let me know.”

“I doubt you would, but I promise I will. Perhaps we could even have a code word, a word the paladins and Coran won’t know, or at least won’t recognize for what it is. If one of us… oh, I don’t know, needs more space or needs the other to stop what they’re doing or the like, we could say the code word.”

“ _Hitsuyou_ ,” he suggested instantly.

She nodded. “ _Hitsuyou_. And we’ll just… go back to what we normally do.”

“Right. And there was actually something else I wanted to ask?”

“Hm?”

“Would you mind coming to the drills tomorrow? You’re out in the field with us more; I’d like us all to get some more practice with you in melee combat. We’ll be a better, more efficient fighting force that way and slightly less likely to get accidentally whacked in the head with your staff.”

She laughed. “I can do that. Just call for me; I’ll be in the lab otherwise.”

He cocked his head. “You’re not trying to figure out how they kidnapped us, are you?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No, I’m not. I want to know _why._ We never did get an answer. I’m trying to figure it out. Which reminds me! Would you mind letting the computer scan you again?”

It was his turn to hesitate. “I’d rather not get in a pod if I don’t have to.”

“No, no, we can do it here, right now. It’s like the scan the Castle did when you first entered. No pod.”

He eased down. “That’s fine.”

She smiled in relief. “Thank you,” and she started inputting the command. “I’m trying to find what the Rektarians found, and your scan is outdated. I’ve updated my own scan as well.” She looked up as the scan initiated, light traveling over his head, widening to take in his broad shoulders and chest, the strong arms, tightening up again to his waist… _Focus._

“I’d be interested in knowing what you find.”

“I promise I’ll let you know. If I can find anything.”

“If you can, you will.” His voice rang with confidence.

She smiled as the scan finished. “Thank you. Is there anything else we need to go over right now?”

“I don’t think so. Don’t work too hard in the lab.”

“ _You_ are not the person who gets to tell _me_ not to work too hard.”

He chuckled. “I suppose not. Thank you for your time, Princess.”

“You don’t have to be so formal.” She hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even thought of saying it. _A princess should always think before opening her mouth,_ she could hear her old tutor say.

“I’m not sure I agree.” He gave her a single nod, almost a bow. “Good night, Princess.”

“Good night,” she replied as the door opened to let him out. And once he was gone, she turned back to the cosmos, braced her hands against the wall, let the lights go out. She felt like she needed to catch her breath a little.

But they had a plan, a good plan: just force themselves to act normal, with an escape hatch – their code word – if needed. They even had a cover story for what they’d just talked about: he’d wanted her to come train with them tomorrow. That was what he’d asked about, and that was the truth and they could leave it at that.

She waved up a locator screen and watched Shiro’s dot move to his room and enter. Only then did she leave the observation deck for her own quarters, when she knew it was safe.

Shiro was incredibly glad the princess had agreed to this.

As expected, the team wasn’t quite sure how to work with her yet, especially when she was wielding that staff. She was a marvel, doing her best to account for them and usually managing it, even when it hampered her or made her have to pull a strike.

She worked best with Hunk, whose main strategy was to plant himself and act as a gun turret. Keith gave her trouble because he was impulsive, reactive, and he got a staff to the back and one to the gut during their run. Lance spent a lot of his time either trying to show off or else being way too aware of where she was, meaning he was less aware of the enemy. And Pidge got her cord tangled around the end of the staff one time.

Shiro moved them up to threes, and it worked a little better. Of course, they all had some idea of how the princess liked to fight now, too. He laughed when Pidge actually lassoed Keith’s feet to pull him down just as the staff swung right through where his head would have been (he’d been wearing his helmet thankfully). When Lance was allowed some high ground, he provided excellent cover for her (naturally; Lance was a born sniper to Shiro’s eyes). Still, Hunk was the best match: he either provided covering fire (and stayed still so the princess wouldn’t have to account for his movement) or he attacked with the same sort of raw physicality she did.

_Well,_ he thought, watching her, _not **quite** the same. _She was stronger than any of them, yet she used a light, flexible weapon, and she used it well. It was sword and shield, spear and stick. She tripped up the training drones, knocked out their legs, pushed them back with a hard thrust to the midsection. And that wasn’t counting how many she could take out on her own; a hard swing into the head of one sent it careening into the next and the next and the _next_. Four bots down with a single swing. Hard to manage in an actual battle – it’d leave her open – but with someone protecting her, to step in that space and cover her, it could be done.

“Okay, okay, I give,” Pidge panted at the end of their round. “I’m officially beat for today.” She turned pleading eyes on Shiro.

He’d never admit it, but he gave in to Pidge far more than he probably should. He still saw her as little Katie sometimes. “Good workout,” he agreed. “You can all hit the showers.”

They practically bolted. He shook his head in amusement.

“Oh, well I guess they had a bit more energy than they thought they did,” the princess observed, having plucked a towel from one of the deck’s hidden supply closets. She was drying her hands.

“They usually find a second wind when training is over,” he chuckled. “And thank you again for doing this. I think you can see how necessa-… needed it was.” He didn’t use the Japanese this time. Not now that it had another meaning.

She nodded. “Yes. Still, they learn quickly. Would you mind if I went over some of my observations with you?”

“Only if I can return the favor.”

She took a couple of steps towards him, paused, and then stayed where she was. They were closer than they had been on the observation deck, but not by much. He wasn’t going to protest.

It was all well and good to say, “We’ll just make ourselves get over it.” _Doing_ it was another matter entirely, and he’d take every bit of distance he could get, even as he cursed himself for taking the easy way out. _If we don’t start acting normal, we might never get there again._ And it _did_ hurt him to have this distance between them.

They’d been friends before, and now it felt like they were turning into strangers. Even if the universe didn’t need them to work together, he didn’t want to lose a friend. He didn’t want to lose _her_.

She knocked him out of his reverie by launching into an in-depth discussion of the various paladins’ strengths and weaknesses, as she saw them. Shiro couldn’t refute most of it, but he did make some protests on their behalf: they weren’t used to a staff-type weapon on the field, they weren’t used to someone who could hit as hard as she could. The very reasons he’d asked her to train with them in the first place: this was all new to them.

She made allowances for that – she claimed – but some part of her was still that merciless taskmaster he remembered from their first session on the training deck. He could still remember her, standing over him, hands on her hips…

“Shiro?” Something tapped him twice on his left bicep.

He snapped out of it. “Sorry, what?”

“You were staring off into space,” she said, lowering the staff.

“Sorry, I was just remembering the first time we were ever on this training deck. You were pretty harsh then, too.”

“I apologize. I was _too_ harsh on you then. I didn’t realize that childhood on Earth was so different from Altea.”

“You were concerned about our ability to form Voltron. It’s understandable.”

“I’m still sorry about it. And I’m not trying to be harsh now, either, just honest.”

“They need a lot more work with you,” he agreed.

“And what about you?” She backed up a couple of steps and leveled the tip of her staff at him. “You didn’t take part in the training.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is this a challenge?”

She shrugged, half-smirking. “We’ll fight the drones together, of course. But I’ll be interested to see which of us takes down more of them.”

He felt himself start to grin. “You’re on, Princess.”

She waved up a screen to punch in the parameters. “You don’t mind a _few_ more combatants, do you? After all, you’ve been watching all this time; I expect you’ve figured out how I move by now.”

_There’s an understatement._ “I may have noticed a thing or two.” _The way your body flows from one movement to another, effortlessly, like the first move made the second as inevitable as it is lethal. The raw power you can summon. The way you hold nothing back. How you put your hips into your punches._

It was dangerous to think of her hips. Or any other part of her, honestly. He put his back to her. “Ready when you are, Princess.”

“It’s too bad you don’t know Altean poetry. We used to do drills like this where one partner would start a poem, the other would have to say the next line, then the first would say the next, and so on. If your partner was running out of breath, you’d know it instantly.”

“Or they just forgot the next line.”

“Well, yes,” she sounded amused, “but then the instructors would get on you for that.”

“We can talk while we fight.”

“Good. Begin.”

The drones shimmered into being and, rather than waiting for him to get a good count – as they’d done during the rounds with the other paladins – they immediately began attacking as soon as they were formed enough to do so. He activated his hand but waited for the drones to come to him; if he went to them, he’d be leaving the princess’s back open.

“I see you did more than just ‘add a few’.”

She giggled and he heard her staff meet the ‘metal’ of a drone. “Well, I know you like a challenge.”

“Hope you didn’t put this at ‘Altean Child’ level.”

“You’re well past that now.”

“Oh, did I make it up to ‘sulky teen’?”

“We don’t have a Keith level.”

He couldn’t help laughing. “He’s not really ‘sulky’.”

“He’s not exactly gregarious.”

“Oooh, someone’s pulling out the good vocabulary. Three.”

“Five.”

“Liar,” he replied without much heat to it.

“You’ll be able to tell which are mine,” she replied.

“Good point. We’ll count up later.” He speared one through the chest, pulled his left arm up and activated the shield in time to prevent a gun blast from hitting. “And guns? Really?”

“More realistic.”

He kicked the shooter away. “You just like knocking me flat on my ass.”

“Well…” She trailed off deliberately.

“That sounds like an admission.”

“I’ve admitted nothing.”

“Your silence speaks volumes, Princess.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“DUCK!”

He dropped to the ground as the staff went through the air over him. When it whooshed back, he lunged up and slit a drone from legs to shoulder, then took a step back to make sure the princess still had cover. “Do what?” he repeated.

“Always use my title.”

“Am I not supposed to?”

“Well, no, you can, of course. It’s just that you’re the only one who does. You use it more than Coran, even.”

He didn’t answer right away. He knew why he did it _now_ , certainly: because he’d take any distance he could get from the memory of her body, of her lying on the bed beside him, of her smiling and laughing and teasing him and mispronouncing certain words horribly. He did it because he had to remember: she was the last princess of Altea and she could do better than some mere human from a planet so technologically-backward that they might as well have been fighting with sharp sticks.

_I don’t even know why I’d think about it. It’s never going to happen. Some staring at me when you were practically drugged doesn’t mean anything._ When given her own mind, when her judgement wasn’t clouded by pheromone gas, she’d never choose him, and he didn’t know why it bothered him suddenly. He didn’t know why he was even thinking about it. He never had before; he’d just accepted it as truth and moved on.

“Shiro?”

He cleared his throat. “Do you want me to stop doing it?”

“I already told you you can.”

“That’s not the same thing. It’s not the same question.”

It was her turn to be silent, with the constant destruction of drones the only sounds. “I… don’t know. It doesn’t bother me, certainly. If I’m honest, I kind of like it.”

“Oh?” This was dangerous ground, and he knew it, and he took it out on two drones in quick succession.

Clang, clang, clang from behind him; he wasn’t the only one setting ‘em up and taking ‘em down. “I keep remembering what Pidge said, when you all arrived: that I’m no princess of yours. And that’s true: I am not royalty on your planet. You have no obligation to treat me as such. But… you do.”

“Of course I do. You _are_ royalty. And you’re…” _my princess._ THAT was something he shouldn’t say. He checked himself, corrected, “…the Princess of Lions.”

She barked a laugh. “I am no such thing.”

“Aren’t you?” He grunted as he put more power behind a strike against a particularly strong opponent. She’d upped the power level, too, apparently. “This is the Castle of Lions. You’re the princess here. The Lions are yours.”

“I’m _not_ the Princess of Lions.”

“Princess of Voltron?”

“No!”

“Lion Goddess?” he asked, using the Arusian term.

She laughed again. “Definitely not! Not if it involves sacrifices!”

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and swung his left arm – shield still raised – back. He got it in between Allura’s face and the laser blast just in the nick (tick?) of time.

“Thank you.” She sounded surprised.

“Of course, Lion Princess,” he replied as he swung his arm back into position, trusting her to take care of the shooter now that she had eyes on him.

“You absolutely should not call me _that_.” But she still sounded like she was smothering laughter.

“Princess of Large Cats.”

“Oh, stop.”

“GIANT KITTY PRINCESS!”

“Pa-pause!” she called out, and the simulation stopped. Shiro turned around to see her bent nearly double, one hand using the staff as a support and the other hand on her knee as she laughed.

He chuckled, pleased with himself, and came over, deactivating his hand and reaching them both out to her in offering. “Oh, I’m sorry, Princess, was it too much for you? We can take a break if you need to…”

She swatted his hands away playfully. “Stop that!” she said around her mirth.

He straightened up. “Whatever my Giant Kitty Princess commands.”

She started laughing again and his smile grew. Her laughter was a rare treasure, and that he could have it here, all to himself…

_Oh, this is bad._ Because he recognized the signs in himself. He’d been here before, but usually sooner, usually not long after meeting someone attractive and engaging. Looks weren’t enough to keep his interest, they never had been, but Princess Allura had looks to spare and the charm, wit, and spirit to keep him hooked.

If anything, he wondered _how_ he could have pushed it down all this time. He wondered how he was going to push it down _now_ , because now he’d acknowledged it, now it had risen to the surface and he wasn’t sure how to go back. But they had to, for the sake of the universe.

_I’ll figure it out. I have to. There isn’t an option here._ Unless… she returned his feelings? But that was such a rocky road to start down. If she didn’t, he’d make things more awkward than they were. And where would he even begin? _“Hey, I know an alien race just tried to get us to mate for the good of the universe, and I’m not saying they were right to kidnap and drug us, but I can’t help realizing that you are, actually, the most incredible person I’ve ever known, and maybe we could see where this goes?”_ Yeah, that’d go over well.

He suddenly had one end of the staff under his chin. He tipped his head back and held up his hands.

“Not a word of this to anyone,” she growled at him, eyes still flashing with amusement.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up again. “I swear on my life, Princess.”

“Oh, that’s not… That’s too much. I wouldn’t _kill_ you, just make you regret it.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“Get back in position; we need to continue the drill.” She looked around. “I think I’m winning though.”

“I think I get an assist on that one,” he said, indicating the drone that had aimed for her face.

“Okay, we’ll split it. I’m still ahead.”

“Barely.” But he went back to his spot, put his back to hers, tried not to think of the curves of her body both in and out of the flight suit. He activated his hand again. “Ready…”

“Don’t. You. _DARE_ ,” she warned him.

“GiantKittyPrincess,” but she’d already re-activated the simulation and it was time to take out the trash once more.

As they got more comfortable with each other, it became easier. She’d knock a drone back into his range, he’d take it out. He’d take one down to the ground and she’d use that moment to swing, rather than yelling for him to duck. He was more willing to leave her side (well, back) for longer, but didn’t let himself get overconfident. They both pivoted around a single point that existed somewhere between their backs, and the drones fell in swarms.

Finally, the simulation ended, and they took count and caught their breath. It was pretty easy to distinguish whose “kills” were whose: hers were battered and his were generally sliced.

“129,” she declared, tossing her head to get a stray lock of hair out of her face.

“And a half,” he reminded her, still finishing up his tally.

“And a half,” she allowed, because it made her number that much bigger, he was sure.

“128.5,” he reported, turning to face her. “You won by _one_ drone.”

“But I still won!” she said with glee. That stray lock fell into her face again. She huffed and tried to shove it away.

“You still won, Giant Kitty Princess.”

“Oh, _stop_ ,” she protested with a laugh.

“Hey, I only promised not to tell the others; I didn’t say a word about saying it in private.”

“You could just call me ‘Allura’ in private!”

“I could,” he agreed with a nod, “but I think I prefer Giant Kitty Princess.”

She laughed again, until the hair fell back into her face.

Before she could do anything about it – and certainly before he could think about what he was doing – he reached over and tucked it behind her ear for her. She blinked, turned red, and backed away.

“ _Hi-…hitsuyou_ ,” she whispered.

He understood immediately and backed up as well. “Sorry. I don’t know why I… I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You just surprised me, that’s all.”

As far as Shiro was concerned, that was the final nail in the coffin of his suddenly recognized dreams. He’d pushed it, initiated a contact that she hadn’t wanted, and her immediate response had been to shut everything down. If this was how she reacted to his brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, there was no hope for anything else.

Pushing things down looked like it might be easier after all.

“I should…” He nodded towards the showers.

“Yes. Good idea. I need to get back to the lab. Thank you for inviting me to train.”

“Thank you for co-… showing up. We’ll probably need to do more of these sessions with the team, you know. But it doesn’t have to be soon.” He wanted her to be comfortable before they did this again.

“Whenever you like, really.” She headed out, walking quickly. She had a private shower, after all; no need to use the public ones.

Shiro sighed and headed into the locker room, mind and heart full, and feeling a little sick from it.

Pidge signaled the all-clear on their suits, quietly. Lance looked to Keith and Hunk and they began to edge out as the shower stall kicked into life.

None of them had been about to walk back onto the training deck proper when Shiro and Allura were fighting together. And when the fighting was over, the guys had hidden, biding their time. Pidge had poked her head out, confirmed the room was empty, and now they could all skedaddle.

They gathered in the kitchen to compare notes.

“They were fighting really well together,” Keith said.

“Giant Kitty Princess,” Hunk snorted. “It’s a shame we can’t use that, or they’d know.”

“They’re good at prioritizing,” Lance said, ignoring Hunk’s (totally true) comment in favor of keeping them on topic. “Fighting is too important to both of them.”

“But they bantered the whole time,” Pidge said thoughtfully. “Shiro even got her to laugh so hard she had to pause the sim.”

“Right up until the end,” Keith agreed. “Did anyone see what happened?”

“No, we were just listening,” Lance said.

“Same here,” Pidge put in. “Sorry.”

They’d been pretty normal over dinner, almost disappointingly so. Lance was still convinced they’d been avoiding looking at each other as much as possible, but no one else believed him.

“They’re doing what they can to pretend things are okay,” he mused out loud, “but there’s still something not sitting well with them.”

“And we still don’t know what it is,” Hunk groaned.

“We’ll be at Olkarion in a little over a quintant,” Pidge reminded them. “Then she’ll disappear into meetings and whatnot. I hate to suggest it, but maybe we _do_ need to do something.” She looked over at Keith.

He groaned. “Okay, I’ll try to talk to Shiro. You three should work on Allura.”

“All three of us?” Hunk asked in surprise.

“We’re dealing with Princess Allura. We’re gonna need all the help we can get,” Lance reminded him.

It’d been fine, everything had been more than fine until he’d done that. Such a gentle gesture, such a simple thing, just tucking that damn lock of hair back for her. He’d done it to help her, she knew that, it wasn’t meant romantically, but that was exactly where her mind had gone: _he tucks the lock of hair behind my ear, his hand slides to press my cheek softly, he leans in towards me, our eyes falling closed…_

She’d panicked disgracefully, and barely held it together long enough to exchange the required niceties before she fled. And now she was here, in her private shower, washing herself as if she could scrub Takashi Shirogane from her mind as easily.

They’d fallen into sync so well, like long-practiced battle partners. They would have scored well together on the school assessments, she was sure. She’d added a lot more drones, increased their power level, given them guns, upped the difficulty in little ways across the board, and the two of them had still managed to clear the room with no major injuries.

She wanted to spar with him again. To spar _against_ him, to see what he was like as an opponent. She wanted to hear that little laugh of his, quietly pleased with himself at her reaction to being called “Giant Kitty Princess.” She wanted to hear him call her “Giant Kitty Princess” again, for that matter. It was silly, so seemingly unlike him, but she knew he could be light-hearted when he wanted and was able.

She wanted to curl up and take a nap, but that wouldn’t do. She had more alchemy to work on, the new scans to look over. She wanted to be on Olkarion; she’d chosen it for several reasons. The obvious one was that it _had_ become the Coalition’s main base, but she also knew she could get more help on Olkarion, and not just with her “personal curiosity.”

Because she hadn’t forgotten what the Rektarians had said: there were Alteans out there. Enough to form a “viable breeding population,” which was at least 25 couples of suitable breeding age. Probably more, after ten thousand deca-phoebs. Somewhere in the universe, her people still existed.

She hadn’t wanted to tell Coran, for fear of getting his hopes up. There was no way to know they’d find them anytime soon. She wanted to prioritize that, to get back to her people as quickly as possible, but the reality of the situation was that saving the universe was more important.

Still, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t beg for some increased deep space scanners, some new biologics, anything and everything she could get for the Castle that would increase her likelihood of finding them. She’d set search parameters, have it run in the background. They’d find them.

The longer it took them to get to Olkarion, the longer she’d have to wait, but this was a good time to work on the alchemy side of things, where the Olkari couldn’t help her.

She shut off the water, padded carefully over to her drying stall. Once dry, she brushed out her hair, put it back up in its bun, and got dressed. She’d set the new scans to comparing before she’d gone to the training deck, and she wanted to see what Altean medical science could find before she started trying to dig through Father’s research to unearth the alchemical equivalences.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Not a hair was out of place. Not this time.

She couldn’t think of Shiro as anything but a research subject right now. The thought pained her, because that was no doubt how Haggar had thought of him, when he was so much more: he was a kind, compassionate, gentle man; born a leader, made a warrior; and he made her face heat when he smiled at her. He deserved better than to be a curiosity, but right now, that was what he had to stay. For her own sake, and everyone else’s.

Keith walked up to Shiro’s station on the bridge. “Hey, uh… can we talk?” he asked quietly.

Shiro smiled up at him. “Sure, what’s going on?”

“Not here. Maybe we could just… walk. Somewhere.”

Shiro nodded and stood. “Absolutely.” He hadn’t been doing anything critical; usual scans and run-throughs. He walked with Keith off the bridge and waited for the doors to close behind them. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. With me. But… see, I have this friend…”

Shiro stopped himself from rolling his eyes. _Well this is new_. Keith didn’t like talking through problems, which meant when he was ready and felt he had to, Shiro always gave him his full attention. But he’d never heard Keith pull the ‘It’s not me, it’s a friend’ trick before. _I think you have more friends now than you did back on Earth, and I still am not going to buy this._ But if it helped him talk about it, that was all that mattered.

Keith continued, “…and he’s been through a lot. A lot lately but also, y’know, just a lot in general. Like, his whole life but especially the last couple of years.”

Shiro frowned. Was the war finally getting to him? He’d asked a lot of a very young and very inexperienced team, and it was little wonder that it was having an effect. They were great, of course, the only ones he could even imagine being Team Voltron, but that didn’t mean they could handle it any better. Sure, if you believed the princess (and he did), they’d been destined to be paladins, but destiny didn’t make things easier for you. They were, all of them, only human.

“And my friend has a friend who’s also been through a lot. That used to kind of bring them together, but now I think it’s… it might be tearing them apart.”

_Huh?_ Shiro thought that through and then laid a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “I know I haven’t had a lot of time to hang out like we used to do, but if you need to talk, I’m always here.”

“What?” Keith was confused.

“What?” Shiro was confused.

“I said this is a _friend_ , it’s not about me!”

He sighed and dropped his hand. “Okay, I’m sorry, but if it’s not about you, then…”

“It’s about _you_.” That made Shiro stop walking and blink, and Keith followed it up with, “You and _Allura_. You two were close, you were leading the team together, and now you’re both kind of on edge around each other, and I…” He looked away. “I wanted to help.”

“Oh, Keith. Keith, buddy, there’s nothing you can do to help with that.” But that was worrisome. If Keith had noticed, the others almost certainly had.

“There has to be something.”

“There isn’t. The princess and I have to sort all that out.”

He looked back to Shiro. “What _happened_ down there? You always say I can come talk to you, and you used to come talk to me. We talked to each other and now you’re shutting me out.”

He nearly told him. In fact, the only reason he didn’t was because he ran through what to say and realized what it would sound like. _“The aliens kidnapped the princess and me because they wanted us to have kids together for some reason we never understood; we made a deal that if we didn’t ‘mate’ in a quintant, they’d let us go. We did such a good job of **not** mating that they gassed us with pheromones and ever since then I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have sex with her and that’s wildly inappropriate and never going to happen and it’s just kind of awkward to be around someone you’ve seen mostly naked, ‘cause, oh, did I mention we were stripped down to our underwear and shoved in a bedroom together for that entire thing? So, yeah, we might be a bit uneasy around each other.”_

Instead what he went with was, “It’ll fade, in time. We’ll get over it.”

“Did they hurt you?” Keith pressed.

“No. I mean, we were strapped to chairs at one point, but they were surprisingly comfortable.”

“Did you have to undergo some terrible interrogation?”

“No.”

Keith thought a bit. “Do you _remember_ what happened there?”

Shiro shot him a Look. “I haven’t been explosion-blasted into any walls recently so, yes, I remember everything.” _Sometimes I wish I didn’t_.

“Just asking.”

“It wasn’t terrible, Keith. We didn’t go through some traumatic experience. It was just weird and uncomfortable and it’s over.”

“I don’t think it’s over for you and Allura. And the team needs you two.”

“I know,” he sighed. “We both know. We’ve talked about it, and we’re trying. You just have to be patient.”

“It’s just…” Keith was quiet, choosing his words. “You’ll always be my best friend, Shiro, and you know you’re like a brother to me. But you and Allura are… you’re Space Mom and Space Dad.”

“‘Space Mom and Space Dad’?” he repeated incredulously.

“Lancesaidit.” How quickly the blame was shifted. “You’re… You two are in charge, and you lead together and that’s what we’re used to, wh-what I’M used to now, and it feels weird to have you two fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Feels like it sometimes,” he protested.

“I’m sorry. But there’s nothing anyone can do about this, really. Not you, not the princess, not even me. It’s just going to be uncomfortable for a bit, but it’ll pass.” _So long as I remember my place and behave myself._ It’d been easier to believe they’d get over it back before he’d realized he was falling for her. And realizing how much the team needed him and Allura to be their usual selves put that much more emphasis on keeping things the way they had been. For their sake as much as anyone else’s.

He couldn’t let his team down.

“You’re sure you can’t just tell me?” Keith asked.

He shook his head. “It’s not my call. It’s _our_ call – the princess would have to agree as well. And we’re both pretty stubborn on this.”

“There’s a surprise,” Keith muttered.

Shiro abruptly grabbed him into a head lock and attempted to noogie the mullet.

“SHIRO! LET ME GO!” Keith flailed.

“You’re overdue for this!” he yelled back.

The two of them disintegrated into play-fighting and name-calling, the uncomfortable talk officially over with now.

“So, heeeey, Princess, what’s shakin’?”

She didn’t look up from the alchemy text she was studying. “Nothing is shaking right now, Lance,” she replied pleasantly. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, actually.”

She did look up now. Lance was just inside the doorway of the lab – within the designated safe zone she’d told everyone they weren’t allowed to leave without her express permission – and looking a bit nervous. _Oh no._

“I was hoping you could come with me real quick.”

“I’m sorry, Lance, I’m busy here,” she told him, hoping to forestall whatever this was. His crush on her hadn’t been much of a secret, but she’d thought they were past that now. It’d been a while since he’d tried some cheesy line on her or given her that annoying smile.

“Please? It-it’s not just me, it’s us! All of us! Well, Keith and Shiro won’t be there, but…”

“Oh!” If this was a paladin thing and not a “getting Allura alone” thing, she was much more receptive. But she looked back at the text, and the scans up on the review screen on her table. “I… probably shouldn’t, but…” But team cohesion was important. All the more so when she and Shiro were still… working things out. “Very well.” She turned to face him. “First things first.” She made shooing motions with her hands.

“Huh? Oh, uh, right.” She couldn’t leave until he did; he was in front of the door. And the “safe zone” was designed to be barely big enough for one person to stand in; she didn’t want a lot of people crowding in here.

Lance left, she exited after him, and he gave a low and grand bow, sweeping his arm out to indicate… the hallway ahead of them. “This way, mademoiselle,” he intoned, as if there’d been any other possible way to go besides turning around, going back inside the lab, and locking it this time.

“What _is_ this?” she asked as she began walking. “And where are we going?”

He caught up with her. “You’ll see, you’ll see! Turn right up here.”

She took a guess. The paladins spent most of their time in the same few rooms. “We’re going to the dining room.”

Lance deflated. “Yes, we’re going to the dining room. But there will be dining! Of a sort. Refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Hunk.”

“Lance, tell me what’s going on,” she insisted.

“I… can’t yet. We wanted to talk with you together, all three of us. I promised I’d wait.”

“Well, since you promised.” She let him lead her to the dining room without further pressure.

There were, in fact, refreshments: water packets and a few scattered bowls of light finger food in the customarily-amazing Hunk style. Hunk himself was standing in front of his usual chair; Pidge was uncharacteristically sitting across from him. Lance zipped over to pull back her chair for her.

“The chairs pull back themselves,” she reminded him with a smile.

“I know, but this is nicer.”

So she sat and the chair automatically pulled itself out of Lance’s grasp to move her forward. He gave up and went to sit in what was normally Coran’s chair. The rest of the table was empty.

“So, we asked you here today to…”

“Lance!” Hunk exclaimed. He smiled politely. “Princess, would you like some hors d'oeuvres?”

She smiled back at him. “I might take some with me when we’re done here. I could use some snacks in the lab.”

That seemed to satisfy him, and he sat down.

“So what’s going on with you and Shiro?”

“PIDGE?!” Lance didn’t like having his plan interrupted, it seemed.

But she was adamant, staring at Allura as if she could read the answer on her face.

However, Allura had been raised to be a princess. No one got anything out of her face she didn’t want them to know. She just arched one eyebrow a hair and asked, “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry for my colleague’s impatience,” Lance said.

“We all have things we’d rather be doing,” Pidge told him, then turned to smile apologetically at her. “We wouldn’t interfere but it’s just… you two have been kind of distant from each other lately and we’re worried.”

Allura’s annoyance softened. Yes, they were… well, Coran would say they were “being paladins,” but they were interfering out of concern.

“We’re still dealing with the… aftermath, I suppose.”

“It must have been horrible,” Lance offered sadly. “Just picked up like that and swooped away to who-knows-where?”

“It was disorienting, to say the least,” she agreed.

“And to be held captive?” Hunk shuddered. “That’s the worst.”

“Actually, they were surprisingly considerate. In many ways, it was like a vacation. A vacation taken under duress, but…”

“Is there any other way you two would take one?” Pidge muttered.

Allura laughed a little. “I actually said something just like that to Shiro at the time.”

Lance frowned thoughtfully. “If it was a vacation, then… I’m confused.”

She exhaled. “As Shiro told you all, these were honestly very nice,” _if somewhat creepy and voyeuristic,_ “aliens who treated us fairly well. But they made some unreasonable demands of us, because they believed they were justified in doing so. We talked them out of it, and they, eventually, released us.”

“So it’s the ‘unreasonable demands’ that were the problem,” Pidge mused.

“They wanted Voltron?” Hunk guessed.

“No. Though we would also have turned that down, naturally. And it doesn’t matter what the demands were; we said no, we held our ground, and now we’re free.”

“Did something else happen while you were there?” Lance pressed. “Something about Shiro, specifically?”

“No, we were together the whole time.”

“Then why are you acting like you’re… I dunno, scared of him?”

“He’d never hurt you,” Pidge reminded her. “Not _our_ Shiro.”

_Our Shiro._ She toyed with the pronoun, tried putting “my” in its place, but that just made her clear her throat and reach for a water packet. “Of course he wouldn’t. I know that. And I’m not afraid of him.”

“Princess,” Hunk said, voice gentle, tone even, like he was talking to a scared pylop that would bolt at any second, “It’s okay to be afraid if you are. Even of Shiro. I don’t like to think about it, but what he can do with that hand…”

“He wouldn’t,” she snapped suddenly. “He never would. Takashi Shirogane is an honorable man who would never seek to harm anyone who wasn’t an enemy combatant in a state of war.”

It took her a moment to realize she was on her feet, glaring down at the seated paladins.

“I… never said he wasn’t,” Hunk finished warily, looking like he might want to dive under the table for protection. “I’m just really glad he’s on _our_ side.”

She cleared her throat, took a moment and a breath to calm herself. She summoned a floating tray from nearby. “Shiro and I aren’t fighting. I know there’s some awkward tension at the moment, but it will pass in due time. Don’t give it a second thought.” She loaded up the tray with Hunk’s snacks, grabbed a second water packet to accompany the one she’d already started drinking. “Thank you for the refreshments.” And she – and the tray – headed back to the lab.

_Scared of him! The very idea!_ she scoffed mentally. _Why would I be afraid of him? He’s gentle and kind and far more merciful than I am._

Her traitorous mind thought back to the training deck, how softly he’d tucked that lock of hair back behind her ear for her, how careful he’d been. She normally didn’t like it when someone treated her like a delicate flower just because she was a princess, but she knew that Shiro was different. They’d just been sparring together, after all; he knew what she was capable of.

No, he was gentle with her not because he thought he’d break her but because… _because what? He wants to be? Why?_ She remembered her conflicting desires in the cage the Rektarians had made for them, when the pheromones were high and she was lost in her own thoughts. He _would_ be slow, sweet, and gentle, he was an explorer by nature, no matter how great a fighter and leader he was. He would want to take his time and enjoy the discovery…

She cleared her throat. This wasn’t the time. And this was, also, exactly what she _was_ afraid of: herself. Her own feelings. They should have been diminishing with the pheromones gone, but she couldn’t get her mind off him sometimes. Immediately after the training deck incident, that was understandable, but now and again she would get distracted by the memory of his body or imagine that she’d heard his voice. She’d wander off into questions like what he’d look like in the morning light, next to her in bed, or what he’d feel like in the dark, making love to her.

This focused obsession was interfering with their recovery. But the problem was that she wasn’t sure now if she wanted to recover, if it meant going back to just being friends and co-leaders. She ought to want that; she ought to err on the side of caution when the entire universe was at stake.

Allura had never been known for her caution.

But Shiro had been an experiment once, little better than a mad scientist’s plaything, and he’d just had to stare down that possibility again. The Rektarians hadn’t wanted to cut any part of him off, but they’d still wanted to force him to do something against his will in order to fulfill their own scientific desires. After something like that, normalcy was probably something he badly wanted, and he more than deserved it.

She was resolved to let him have all the time he needed to recover. She could keep her burgeoning feelings to herself for now. When he was better, and the time was right, they could talk. But not now. Not yet. It was too soon, and she wanted to be as gentle with him as he was with her.

There were few times and places where the two of them could take their leisure. She’d let him have this one, for his own sake.

They consulted, pooling the knowledge they’d gained.

“Did Shiro say it was like a vacation? Allura actually used the word ‘vacation.’”

“No, but he did say the chairs they were strapped to were very comfortable.”

“Maybe Alteans have a different definition of ‘vacation’…”

“She said it was the unreasonable demands of their captors that made things uncomfortable.”

“Shiro didn’t say anything about that. He didn’t say anything at all! He said that he and the princess would _both_ have to agree to talk about it, and that he won’t say anything without her say-so.”

“I still think she’s afraid of him for some reason.”

“What reason? He doesn’t seem mad at her, just… I dunno, tired. And he said they’ll basically get over it in time.”

“That’s what she said. HA! Wait, no, it’s not funny in this case.”

“Don’t try, Lance.”

“He just doesn’t want to talk about it. At all. Something bad had to have happened.”

“Maybe they wanted his blood or something?”

“What if the aliens wanted them to fight to the death? And they didn’t, of course, they managed to convince them to change their minds and let them go, but they spent a whole quintant down there thinking about what they’d have to do if they had to fight each other. It would explain why they’re uneasy with each other and why she was a little nervous after the training deck fight. That brought it all back, even though they were fighting together against the drones.”

“Why would they want them to fight to the death against each other? Shiro and Allura _both_ said they were decent people just… weird.”

“I dunno, but do you have a better explanation?”

“We didn’t even prove or disprove the _last_ explanation!”

“Well, it can’t hurt to have more theories to explore.”

“Man, I don’t even want to think about Shiro and Allura fighting each other. Like actual, real combat type fighting.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“They wouldn’t. They never would. Shiro would cut off his other arm before he’d attack the princess.”

“We’re almost to Olkarion, guys. Maybe we _should_ just leave this alone?”

“That’s what they both want, clearly.”

The paladins shared a look that agreed instantly: where Shiro and Allura were concerned, none of them were prepared to ‘just leave it alone.’

Shiro couldn’t look himself in the eye. _I think I preferred my usual._

His “usual” night terrors were scenes of blood and carnage in the Galra Arena, of what he might have had to do to survive. He became “Champion” the first time, when he defeated Myzax, but then it was a title to maintain, a title others strove for, and a gory responsibility to slake the bloodthirst of the audience. And, in the dreams, it was a duty he _enjoyed_.

The worst part was usually the wondering: was that a memory or just his mind tormenting him? This morning, he knew it was fiction, but that didn’t help. Sometimes the fictions were worse: it usually involved the team, or the Kerberos crew, or his family, or some mix of them. And they would be brought into the Arena and plead for him to recognize them, just before he cut them down. And he would wake afraid of himself. He hadn’t done that… but he _could_. He could, if the monster within him awoke.

But last night… last night something new had happened.

He was the Champion, the Galra’s favorite toy and prized slayer, splashing blood along the Arena walls and reveling in the accolades of the crowd. He’d come to love it, come to crave it as much as they had. This part was normal, this unleashing of the monster he was.

But then they’d taken him from the Arena, praised him for his long string of victories, and offered him a reward. A door. Not a cell, a _door_ , and it was reward enough already, but on the other side was a beautiful young woman sitting on a bed, naked and smiling. She rose to her feet and opened her arms to him when she saw him. The Galra patted him on the back, congratulated him again, and the door shut – and locked – behind him.

She was nothing but a well-deserved prize to him. Her moonlight hair hung loose around her like a cloud; her tiara was gone; her blue-and-pink eyes were dazed with whatever drug they’d given her. The pink markings on her dark skin were interesting, but he didn’t care about those. She nearly lost her balance as she came to him; he grabbed hold of her, picked her up, and threw her on the bed. She giggled, lost in the haze. He shoved her thighs apart roughly, leaving bloody handprints behind. He wasted no time plunging into the soft, silvery curls and she moaned as he took her. Her head lolled to one side, staring out at the room but not really seeing anything as he helped himself to what he wanted.

Shiro had nearly fallen out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, made it just in time to throw up into a sink. His subconscious had something _new_ to torture him with, and it was apparently determined to make the most of it. Even knowing that there was no way that had happened didn’t make it any easier on him. He hated himself for having even dreamt it, as if he were to blame for his nightmares as well as his fantasies.

He flushed, washed up, and took a shower: long, hot, with as much scrubbing as he could stand. Nothing would get that out of his mind: mindless, drugged Allura, used as a… and used by him. He could still see the fresh blood from the Arena dripping off of him and onto her skin. _Is that the sort of thing you wanted?_ his mind demanded of the Rektarians. _The two of us drugged and docile and mindlessly fucking just so you can get whatever it is you want? Your successful ‘breeding pair’ to be used to maintain and preserve something you won’t even explain? ALLURA IS NOT YOUR TOY! SHE IS NO ONE’S **THING** TO BE USED! _Belatedly, he added, _And neither am I. Not anymore._

He caught sight of his own reflection.

The glass – or whatever it was – of the mirror spiderwebbed around his fist on impact.

Her first thought was, _By the Ancients, he looks terrible._

They’d been on Olkarion a couple of quintants now. She was in the middle of approving the list of Castle upgrades, making sure nothing had been forgotten (or added – Slav was still _twitching_ to get rid of the ziplines) and that all was in order. But seeing Shiro show up at the end of breakfast looking haunted and not quite in touch with this (or possibly any other) reality was enough to distract her.

She rose from her seat. They had living quarters planet-side, for all of them – a nice lounge area with seven bedrooms radiating off of it like spokes of a wheel – but they shared the communal dining area with the Olkari and the Coalition members.

So it wasn’t only the paladins and Coran who heard Shiro cry out and saw him flinch away from her when she tried to put a hand on his shoulder. She pulled it back instantly.

He looked around the room, at everyone quiet, staring, then turned and fled. She glanced back at the room, glared them into restarting their conversations, then gave pursuit, to apologize, if nothing else. But when she realized where he was going, she stopped and let him be. At least for now. She had things to see to. _I’ll catch up with you later._

She returned to her list, talked to Ryner about Coalition supplies, and spent some time reading over her alchemy texts in her room on Olkarion. She tried not to be aboard the Castle when it was being worked on (unless they needed her), and as soon as she’d approved the list, the industrious Olkari had likely started immediately.

And then she went back, not having seen Shiro show up again in their living quarters. And, of course, he was still there, sitting on one of the Black Lion’s massive paws, leaning his head against her foreleg, staring ahead and seeing nothing.

She got as close as she dared – about ten paces from one of Black’s claws – then said, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Princess,” he replied hollowly, still staring ahead.

“I didn’t mean to… to startle you this mor-…”

“You didn’t startle me. But thank you. You are, as usual, more gracious than could be expected.”

Her brow furrowed. “Shiro, you’re too hard on yourself.”

“You don’t know me.” She was about to protest that when he continued, “You had no idea who I was, and you gave me the Black Lion. If anything, _I_ owe _you_ an apology.”

“I don’t see for what.”

“You entrusted the most powerful weapon in the universe to a bunch of teenagers led by a broken man.”

“You’re not broken.”

“I am. And I’d rather be broken than… than what I might be otherwise.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. She thought a moment, then cleared her throat. “In any case, I didn’t ‘give’ you the Black Lion. The Black Lion _chose_ you.”

“You know what I meant.”

“It’s still true.” She looked around as if there would be a cue card for her. Each Lion had its own designated launch pad while here on Olkarion. Black’s was on top of the building their living quarters were in. Allura could see the forest, far outside the city, yet somehow, not entirely separate from it.

“They all saw,” Shiro said.

She looked back to him. “They’re worried about you.”

He shook his head. “I’m…”

“Don’t you dare say ‘broken,’” she warned him.

He finally looked at her. He looked exhausted, like Black was the only thing keeping him upright. “Do you want me broken or do you want me to be a monster?”

“I want you to be _you_ , and you’re neither.”

“I have the most terrible dreams.”

“So do I.”

That seemed to give him pause. But realization snapped over him. “I suppose you would. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you, but there’s nothing to be done about them.”

“Except revenge?”

“Justice.”

He waved the difference away as inconsequential. “Princess, what happens when the war is over?”

“Peace,” she replied without really thinking, but her brain started revving up. “Rebuilding, for certain; the reconstruction effort would be massive…”

“But the universe won’t need Voltron anymore. You won’t need …us.”

She smiled faintly, as if to remind Shiro how it was done. “You’re my friends, my… my family. I’ll always need you.”

He half-smiled back, but it didn’t reach his eyes. And when he spoke again, it was a passable impression of himself, good enough that, if you didn’t know him, you’d think he was fine. “I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. I’m sorry for worrying everyone.” He slid off of Black’s paw, landing between two claws, and started to walk off.

_You’re not fooling **me**_. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“NO.” It was instant, curt, almost snappish.

“Is it… is it about… the Rektarians?”

He froze. “N-. Ye- _maybe_. I don’t know. It’s not entirely about them, but that whole thing may have influenced it.” He looked away. “I need to tell the building supervisor I broke a mirror this morning.”

“Are you alright?”

“Right hand. I’m fine. The mirror’s not.” He started to walk off again, still not looking in her direction.

For Shiro to punch the mirror… She doubted he’d developed a sudden violent hatred of glass. His target was rather obvious. “Shiro, how… how can you hate yourself so much when you’re such a good man?”

He paused, but still refused to look at her. “I try to be. I’m not sure if I’ll always succeed.”

“I am,” she told him, hoping she could hear his sincerity. “I know you will. It’s what you _are_ , Shiro, as sure as you’re human.”

He winced a little.

“You _are_ human. I have the scans to prove it, remember? And I’ve known you all this time while we’ve been fighting. You are the best man I’ve ever known, aside from my father. Don’t tell Coran.”

He actually smiled, a full-on smile. It was brief, but she’d caught it. She took the risk in taking another couple of steps closer to him.

“You’re courageous, you’re compassionate, you’re considerate…”

“Am I anything that doesn’t start with a ‘C’?”

“Shut up,” she told him, not meaning it in the slightest. The smile was coming back to his face. “You’re also kind and… and you’re my support, Shiro. My co-leader, my equal and partner in nearly everything, and I’m not sure what I’d do without you.”

“You’d figure it out.”

“Most likely. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to have to learn what it’s like to have a universe without you in it.”

His head whipped to hers, eyes widening in surprise, and she realized she’d said too much, come too close to a truth she hadn’t been intending to reveal. But there was no taking it back.

She reached out, reached for his right hand, grabbed it and held on.

He looked down at their joined hands.

She gave his hand a squeeze, tried to smile.

He croaked out a choked, “ _Hitsuyou_ ,” and pulled away from her, running back down into the building.

“This would have been so much easier if it’d been you guys,” Pidge sighed.

Ryner shook her head. “Even we aren’t capable of such things. Yet.” She tapped her finger against her mouth thoughtfully. “I believe we could figure out how it was achieved.”

“That’d be amazing, but right now we’re more interested in who _is_ capable of it,” Hunk said. “And why they’d want Shiro and Allura.”

“Well, there’s a handful of other races at a similar or higher tech level to ours,” Ryner said, waving up a screen. “Some can be… taken off the list,” she said hastily, removing _Alteans_ quickly. “Others have specialties that don’t lend themselves to such things.”

“What do you mean?” Pidge asked.

“Well, the Hyceneans focus on chemistry so exclusively that they have to buy their spaceships from other races, even hire foreign pilots much of the time. The Rektarians are biologists, genetic engineers. They aren’t _quite_ as narrow-minded as the Hyceneans, but they’re also pacifists. Even if they had the technology to do something like this, I can’t imagine they would.”

“Okay, so who does that leave?” Hunk pressed.

Shiro volunteered to help work on the Castle. He wanted to keep busy, and for every near-magical transformation the Olkari were able to manage, there were just as many boxes to load and unload, parts to bring out and organize, supplies to sort through. He could manage manual labor, and it kept his mind off things.

The only thing he forgot was that Princess Allura could be aboard the Castle when it was being worked on. She was careful to stay out of the way – up to and including avoiding the Castle entirely – but she and Coran knew the Castle of Lions the best, so the Olkari often brought one or both onboard when required. He’d remembered the first part and forgotten the second. He wasn’t sure how: the princess and the castle were as intrinsically linked as he and his Lion were.

_White Castle, Black Lion_. His description of yin and yang came back to him: Allura’s hand in his, their fingers intertwined… _Back to work_. He’d replaced his usual vest-and-shirt with a white tank top; he wasn’t ready to be entirely shirtless, to bare that many scars to everyone, but this was hot, sweaty work.

He did the best he could to avoid her, but he should have known by now that the universe typically wasn’t kind to him.

“Shiro, come with me!” she barked as she strode past him. She was in a worksuit, a form-fitting black thing that reminded him of the paladin under-armor. The last thing he wanted was to be behind her while she wore that, because he just _knew_ it’d show off her body well, especially… Well, he’d always considered himself a leg man, and now that he knew what her legs looked like, they were very enticing, but it was hard not to notice the curve of her ass in damn near everything she wore that wasn’t a dress.

But he was used to obeying orders, especially from her, especially when delivered in that tone. He set the box down and went after her, trying to catch up and walk alongside her for his own sake. “What’s going on?”

“I need someone to watch me while I work on the auxiliary quantum reserve. I’m going to be talking to Fetyr while I do it, because we need to coordinate the efforts.”

“You need someone to watch you?” he asked, confused.

“I have to hang over the side of a railing and it’s a thousand-foot drop if I fall.”

He paled. “Got it. But wouldn’t it be easier to wear your flight suit and use the thrust packs to…?”

She cut him off. “I won’t be able to hear Fetyr over the roar of the pack’s engines. Not indoors.”

“Right.”

“I mostly need you there as backup; there are ways to strap in and do this on my own. But if the strap snapped or something broke…”

“I understand, Princess. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She paused outside a door, turning to look at him. _Did I… say that weird somehow?_ But then she pressed on, the door opening for them.

It was a circular room with a walkway that went around the wall. A column of faintly pulsing blue light ran through the very center of the room.

She went right and he followed her. “Fetyr? I’m almost in position.”

He couldn’t hear the Olkari’s response.

She stopped at a particular section of wall, and a piece of it slid open to reveal her safety equipment: a single strap of material. He frowned, but she didn’t notice, just wrapped it around herself, snapped it into place like a belt, and kneeled down to hook the other end to a handle at the base of the wall. She looked back to him. 

“Stand here, without standing on the strap, please,” she added, a small smile on her lips. “I have to go over the side,” she pointed to the railing, more than wide and high enough for someone to slip under, “and open the panel down there. Just keep an eye out for me and help me back up when I’m done.”

He nodded. “Understood.” Simple enough. He moved forward as she slid under the railing, planting his feet either side of the safety strap.

“Fetyr? Give me a tick and I’m good to go.” He watched her take a deep breath and then ease herself over the railing.

He couldn’t help it: he went to the edge and looked down. She was dangling there, opening a panel that was just beneath the walkway. “Access panel open. Auxiliary quantum reserve at 58%.” She frowned; apparently that wasn’t good?

She was quiet, listening to her Olkari partner. “Yes, well we’ll work on that next. For now, let’s get this done.” Pause. “Right. Power diversion ready in 3… 2…” She pushed a button.

The column of blue light in the center of the room wavered and then all the light in the room vanished.

“Sorry, Shiro!” she called out to him. “I forgot to warn you that’d happen!”

“I’m okay if you are,” he replied back, though he would have liked the warning.

“Fetyr? Okay, power diverted.” There was a faint blue glow from Allura’s position as she used her alchemy to illuminate her tiara gem so it could act as a flashlight. It ably lit up the panel she was looking at. “Ready to prime on your signal.”

Shiro had no idea what they were doing or what was going on, but then he wasn’t here to do anything technical. He was just following his princess’s orders, as he always had and always would.

“Priming.” And then, after a few ticks. “Primed and ready on your mark. Power restoration in 3… 2…”

Nothing happened. “Uh, Princess…?” Shiro asked.

“It’ll take it a bit,” she replied confidently. “Auxiliary quantum reserve regaining power. How are things on your end, Fetyr? Good, good. Yes, I’m on my way back up.”

That sounded like his cue. He kneeled and reached under the railing, holding his hands out.

She reached up, her hands grabbing his wrists as his did the same to hers. Then he began to pull.

He hauled her up from under the railing, pulling with all his strength as gravity did the same on its end. And, with one good final yank, he fell backwards, ending up with his back and head against the wall and his arms full of princess.

She exhaled in relief as the power flickered back on. “There, see? I told you it’d come back.”

“Thank goodness.”

She laughed. “Afraid of the dark?” She tried to pick herself up, bracing herself with a hand on his chest, and when she pushed herself back, her eyes seemed to just fall to his naturally.

“Only sometimes,” he answered distantly. He was too aware now of how close they were, how her body was pressed against his, how easy it would be to slide his hands over her back as he leaned in and kissed her. His mind was too full of imagining her kissing him in return to think of witty replies.

Her lips on his, his hands finding the way to open her worksuit so he could feel her skin, and her hands scrabbling at his clothes to get them off, get them open, let her at what they both wanted. Would they stand up so he could have her against the wall, or would she straddle him here, half-sitting on the ground? He wouldn’t complain either way. He just wanted…

She blinked and broke the moment. “Fetyr’s waiting for me, I should…”

He let go of her. “Y-yes, of course, I have work to get back to, too.”

She reached her arm out and, for a moment, he thought she was going to embrace him. His eyes flitted to her lips, back to her eyes, but she was just unhooking the strap from its handle. She stood hastily. “Thank you for all the help you’ve been.”

“I’m glad to do it, Princess.” He clambered back to his feet as well.

She hesitated, then hurried out. He hadn’t had to use _hitsuyou_ that time, but it was a near thing. He probably should have used it, but he’d been… distracted. As usual, of late. Cursing the Rektarians for easily the twentieth time, he took a moment and a steadying breath, then headed back to his busywork. He needed it now more than ever.

Even the Castle’s updated scans weren’t showing her anything, and the alchemy texts weren’t helping her. She couldn’t figure out what it was that had so interested the Rektarians in them. At least, she couldn’t figure it out right now, when she was spending most of her time overseeing upgrades and talking to the various Coalition members who needed her for something.

It was sort of a relief, honestly: the more time she spent on those tasks, the less time she was spending thinking about… things she didn’t want to think about. She wanted to give Shiro the time he needed and, if she were being honest, she didn’t have the courage to bring up her feelings yet. It was better to keep busy, to keep herself distracted. And she was keeping herself very, _very_ busy.

Coran was on her about how much she was working, but she just began ignoring his comms. When there was no oversight to see to or upgrades to help with, she shut herself in her father’s lab. She’d rather be helping with the Castle upgrades, but working on what she’d come to think of as “The Issue” at least gave her something to do. It was better than nothing, and, Lance’s intrusion from the other day aside, it was where she was least likely to be bothered.

She didn’t think about the Rektarians, or Shiro, or even eating. Sometimes food showed up in her general vicinity (usually just left inside the safe zone), and she ate whatever it was. Sometimes she could tell it was Hunk’s Special Cuisine (because she would have to pause for at least a tick or two to appreciate it), but just as often it was _nutrien_ or Olkari _kora_ cubes. One time it was just a bowl of nuts from the forests around the city. Whatever it was, she ate it, drank the water that inevitably showed up with it, and continued working.

She stayed in her bedroom on the Castle, the better to be close at hand for the next day’s labor. That it put that much more distance between her and Shiro – who was sleeping in their Olkari-provided living quarters – was a bonus. It was too much to say she “slept” there though. She was allotting herself four vargas a night and much of that was filled with her usual horrors.

One night it’d be the last vargas, the last doboshes, the last _ticks_ of Altea, in slow motion for her to watch. Her people screaming as they were torn apart, crushed by debris, devoured by flame, drowned in the endless waves. Her planet coming apart at the seams, the agony of its inhabitants soundless in deep space. Her father’s corpse falling into the very center of the exploding world.

And as intense an ache as those nightmares produced, nothing was worse than the nights when, instead of imagining the past, she pictured a horrible future:

She was held captive by Haggar’s magic, forced to stand next to Zarkon on a reviewing stand, Galra all around them. She couldn’t move, couldn’t shift, couldn’t even struggle, and, worst of all, couldn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t even blink as the five paladins of Voltron were brought before the reviewing stand, bound and gagged. One by one, they were dropped to their knees, and they glared hatred at Zarkon, all of them, even Hunk. And one by one, they were shot in the head. And she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t close her eyes.

Shiro’s gaze slid to hers, faded from rage into a softness that stabbed into her harder than any dagger or spear. Because in that moment she knew that he loved her, that he longed for the ability to say so, to…

His blood sprayed on her face and all she could do was cry before she was thrust forward to hit the ground. Her eyes were locked on Takashi’s lifeless face. He was dead now and he was dead because of her, because she had brought them to this, and now Zarkon had won. The drones surrounding her with their guns didn’t matter to her.

The guns targeted her head.

She kept her eyes on Takashi, ignoring the tears running down her bloody face.

“I’m so sorry.”

And she woke up.

Those were the worst nights, because she could wake up at any point during the Destruction of Altea, but she was as trapped in these visions as she was in the dream itself. She _couldn’t_ stop the dream, _couldn’t_ wake up until the end. She had to watch the last hope in the universe die right in front of her.

There was never a night where she slept straight through all four vargas. There was _always_ a torment awaiting her. And she accepted that. Such was the burden of royalty and leadership. She didn’t have to like it, but it was the way things were. 

They’d been on Olkari for nearly two movements. The last few quintants, no one had hardly seen the princess, save for delivering her some food. Coran had suggested _not_ doing that, just for one quintant, to see if she’d come out on her own. But checking in with the Castle told him this gambit had failed.

He sighed as they all sat around their lounge. “Shiro, she’s still in there. Will you go fetch her out? Make sure she gets something to eat if she hasn’t?”

“Me?” he asked, blinking up from whatever he’d been reading.

“Yes. Why not you?” Coran asked.

“Uhh… no reason. I’ll go check on her.” He set his comtab down and left hurriedly.

Coran shared a look with the other paladins.

“Look, we don’t know,” Pidge said. “We asked Ryner, but…” She shrugged.

“We knew it wasn’t the Olkari anyway,” Coran said. “They told us so when I sent them that message before.”

“Yeah, but Ryner doesn’t have any idea who it could be,” Hunk told him. “We went down the list.”

“What list?” Keith asked.

“The list of sufficiently-advanced races,” Pidge replied. “Some of them were conquered or destroyed by Zarkon – like the Alteans,” she added, softening her voice and shooting Coran an apologetic look before continuing, “or they’re specialists in a particular kind of other science.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t have pocket dimension capability,” Lance said. “Maybe they bought it off the Blades or developed it on their own.”

“That’s just it: none of these people would have developed it on their own!” Pidge told him. “And we haven’t had any contact with any of these races. I mean, _maybe_ the Blades have, but if they trusted them enough to give up the pocket dimension capability – even for money – I think they would have mentioned it to us.

“And it’s not just the pocket dimension thing: don’t forget they just swooped Shiro and Allura away and swooped us all back to the Castle and the Lions to their hangars! That’s _super_ advanced. Ryner asked Slav and he kind of went off – like he does – but she said he’s surprised that exists in this reality.”

Hunk shrugged. “The point is: no one on the list is real likely to have this sort of tech, but even the likeliest – if you _stretch_ – we don’t know how to get in contact with.”

“Have Ryner get in touch with the ones they _can_ ,” Keith shot back.

“We did,” Pidge said. “She said the responses were all, ‘No, we don’t have it. Why? Are you selling? We’d love to have it.’”

There was a heavy sigh that went through the room.

“Either someone we didn’t expect has gotten super good at their tech,” Hunk summarized, “or it’s one of the ones we can’t get in touch with.”

“Well, it has to be _someone_ ,” Coran said.

“I wish I could get some answers out of Black,” Keith muttered.

The rest of them sat up straight. “Maybe you could!” Hunk said excitedly. “Y-you piloted Black once, right?! She activated for you, so maybe…”

“I ALREADY TRIED,” he snarled. He slunk in his seat and folded his arms. “She wouldn’t even turn on.”

“What?! WHY?!” Pidge’s frustration rang through her voice.

“Because she’s protecting Shiro’s privacy,” Lance replied confidently. “It’s what Blue would do for me.”

There was a silence that all but grumbled. Finally, Coran spoke up.

“Look, I want to know as much as any of you. But it might be for the best that we let them sort this out. There are some things we’re not meant to find out.”

“No.” Pidge shook her head. “I don’t believe that. There’s so much in the universe we still don’t know or fully understand – _yet_. But we have to keep trying, keep learning, keep…”

“That’s… that’s like physics and such,” Hunk said. “That’s not _people_. Sometimes people have secrets and we have to respect that.”

“You just don’t want Allura to yell at you again,” Lance replied.

“Well, yeah, for one thing. She’s scary sometimes! But it’s still true. I know some secrets of yours, Lance, that I haven’t told anyone. And I won’t.”

“What secrets?!” Pidge and Keith asked together, leaning towards Hunk in interest.

“I am not telling,” Hunk said loftily. “Nor can I be bribed or tortured into doing so. I will not violate the Sacred Bonds of Friendship.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Lance said, patting him on the shoulder. “And he’s right. I guess we’re pushing too hard on this.”

Keith fell back into his seat. “I just don’t like being left out.”

“I don’t like not knowing,” Pidge added sullenly.

“Well, yeah,” Hunk agreed, “but think about it if it were one of you who got taken and something weird or whatever went down and, for whatever reason, you didn’t want to share it with us. You’d be mad at us for not letting it drop, right?”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, you both play it pretty close to the vest. You wouldn’t want to tell us, and we’d bug you about it, and you’d both get snippy – or possibly stabby…”

“We wouldn’t stab you!” Pidge protested.

Keith remained silent on the subject.

“But point taken,” she replied. “I suppose we really should leave them alone, even if we don’t like it.”

“We don’t have to like it,” Coran told them, “but we do have to accept it. Especially if we want our _other_ little project to succeed.”

The paladins brightened immediately. “You mean Operation: Shallura Smooches?” Lance asked with a grin.

“I still think combining their names is stupid,” Keith muttered.

“It’s easier to say,” Hunk maintained.

“Stop grousing about the name,” Pidge told him. “The important part is getting the two of them to admit they’re falling for each other.”

“That’s why I sent Shiro in after Allura,” Coran said, stroking his mustache as he basked in his genius.

“You sure that’s a good idea, the way they’ve been kind of… weird around each other lately?” Lance asked.

“Well, they’ll have to get over it somehow!” he told him. “Avoiding each other won’t work. Besides, who knows? Maybe some time alone on the Castle will spark something in them.”

The other paladins shared a glance and a shrug.

“We can only hope.”

They’d been on Olkari for nearly two movements. The last few quintants had been spent entirely in the lab. Aside from the odd stray thought – _I wonder how much time Father got to spend here?_ – she worked diligently. She was reading an old text on the interconnectedness of living beings when she realized she was swaying on her feet. _Time to go to bed, I suppose._ She left the lab, one hand out on the wall to help keep her steady.

Her stomach grumbled, and she stopped. _Food first._ No food had “appeared” for her today because she’d been in the lab the whole time, and no one dared come in. She changed direction, orienting herself towards the kitchens.

She was so tired though. It was her Castle; she could probably walk it in her sleep. She certainly didn’t need to see to find the kitchen. She closed her eyes.

The next thing she was aware of was a distant voice. “Allura!”

She smiled, eyes still closed. “Hm?”

“Allura, are you okay?” The voice was closer, and it was Shiro’s.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see him coming down the hallway towards her.

Instead, he was leaning over her. She realized she was on the ground.

“Huh? How did I…?”

“You must have fallen. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Just hungry and tired.” She tried to stand up.

“Here, let me help you.” He put an arm around her shoulders, and she didn’t protest. “Let’s get you some food. When did you last eat?” He began walking with her towards the kitchens.

She thought. “I don’t know. The quintant before? This morning maybe.”

“Allura…”

“Don’t be Coran,” she told him, starting to feel a little more like herself.

That shut him up for a tick or two. “Is Coran the only one who’s allowed to worry about you?”

“No, but I don’t want to hear it. It’s like… you know…”

His brow furrowed. “Know what?”

“You _know_. The word.”

“Is your universal translator not working?”

“No, it’s… I mean, yes, it’s working, I just…”

“Are so tired you can’t think straight?”

“N- …okay, also yes, but also no.”

“Yes but also no?”

“Argh, why aren’t you understanding?! I don’t want to hear it ‘cause it’s like _The Word_ , you know, that we had to hear _all the time_ for _twenty entire vargas_?! And actually a little more than that.”

That was what got through to him. “OH, **_that_** word. Okay, I get it. But my point is that we all worry about you. I know Coran can get…”

“Fussy and nanny-ish.”

“Overprotective,” he suggested instead. “And I don’t want to be that. I try not to overdo it, but I _do_ want to protect you.”

“‘Cause I’m the princess,” she muttered.

“Because you’re m- … _our_ princess.”

She glanced over at him, but he was looking straight ahead. It was hard to tell if she was imagining the pink in his cheeks or not.

He delivered her to the kitchens and all but propped her up against the side of the counter. “Some quick food goo and water, and then straight to bed.”

“You’re being Coran again,” she accused him.

“I’m worried about your health and well-being.” Once he was sure she was going to remain upright, he headed for the refrigerated unit.

“You’re not my father.”

“No, I very much am not,” he agreed, pulling out a water packet.

But that made her pause. “Wait, why do you say that?”

“I’m agreeing with you,” he told her as he handed her the water.

“But you said it with such… emphasis.”

“I’m not your father.” He left her side to get a bowl and spork. “No one could ever be your father.”

“That’s true.” And it was true, but why was she so upset about his agreeing with her on it? She tried to reason it out. “No one could ever replace Father. He was a good and noble man, daring – a bit too much, my mother would say – and brave, but… in the end, he gave up hope. He felt there was no choice, but he was wrong. He said as much to me, when we still had him. There’s always hope.”

She looked up to Shiro’s face as he carried the bowl of _nutrien_ to her. “You’re not my father. But you are just as good, just as noble, every bit as brave and daring… and you refuse to give up hope.”

He stopped stock still. He licked his lips and swallowed hard, then closed the last couple of steps so he could offer her the bowl. “You’re tired. Eat.” He noticed the untouched water packet. “And drink.”

“I mean, it’s no wonder.” She was looking at him, but still just talking out loud. “How could I ever not…”

“ _Allura_ ,” he said, pressing the bowl on her. “Food. Water. Please.”

She frowned at him, at his insistence on interrupting her thoughts. “Very well, but only because you said please.”

“And because you passed out in the hallway, likely due to not having eaten all day?”

“That, too.” She set the water aside for now because the smell of food was more appealing. She didn’t try to eat daintily either.

It took a few sporkfuls before she realized that Shiro was still standing there. “I’m okay now,” she told him.

“I want to make sure you get to your room okay.”

She sighed. “What are you even doing on the ship?”

“No one’s seen you in nearly a quintant. Coran sent me in.”

She groaned. “Coranny the Nanny.” She took a long sip from the packet.

“You’re working too hard.”

“I’m not.” Back to eating.

“You passed out on the floor!”

“I was a little forgetful today, that’s all.”

He sighed harshly and shook his head. “It’s maddening. You believe in this cause so much that you’re willing to sacrifice your own health for it, but…”

“You’re not one to talk. I’ve seen how little sleep you get.”

“I eat, at least!”

“You do the bare minimum to maintain combat readiness.”

“But I’m not as important as y-…”

She slammed the half-empty bowl of _nutrien_ down on the counter. “You are _more_ important! Don’t you understand that without you, there is no Black Lion, and without the Black Lion, there is no Voltron? Without Voltron, there is no hope for us, for the universe! This team needs you, Voltron needs you, the _entire universe_ and everyone who lives in it _NEEDS **YOU** , _Takashi Shirogane!”

He blinked in shock at her, but she couldn’t stop. “ _I_ am less important than you are! Because what am I? A princess of no people, no planet! What good am I, now that I have delivered Voltron to its paladins?! I am destined to be a tragic figure of history and little more, but that doesn’t matter. Glory doesn’t matter, even history doesn’t matter. The _future_ matters, and in order to have any hope for the future at all, we need Voltron, not some lingering royal who clings to a shattered throne for some sense of who she is!”

“ALLURA!” He grabbed hold of her arms, his eyes boring into hers. “You. Are. NOT. Worthless. You are not less important than I am. You want to speak in terms of war? You can _supercharge_ Voltron, a power that was never granted to the paladins of old! You command the Castle, which is our base of operations, our fallback position, our transport into and out of each battle! You can shift your appearance, you’re _amazingly_ strong! You have the power of alchemy and even outright magic! You are as fearless a combatant as any I’ve ever known, and every single person who fights is _needed_. But you’re more than even all of that.

“You are not just some vehicle for destiny. You lead us. The Lions are _yours_ , even though they chose us. You are linked to them in some way we can’t begin to understand. We are their paladins. We are _your_ paladins. You are _our_ princess, even if we aren’t Altean. We follow you.

“You. Are. Nec-… Indispensable. To Us.” A tick. “To _Me_.”

She looked into his dark eyes and felt something inside her give way. She fell onto his shoulder and started crying. She felt his arms enfold her, and he rubbed her back carefully. She latched onto him tightly.

“You’re just saying these things because you’re tired,” he commented quietly.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Well, what you said isn’t true. I mean, yeah, I hold an important position.”

“You _are_ important,” she whispered.

“But you’re our princess. Don’t ever, _ever_ think that you’re useless or worthless. Please.”

She sniffled and just let the tears leak out.

He held her and said nothing.

Finally, she observed, “You called me ‘Allura’.”

“I’m sorry, Princess.”

“It’s okay. I like it.”

He didn’t answer at first. Then, “Let’s get you to bed.”

She nodded, suddenly feeling every drop of exhaustion as if she were deep underwater and an entire ocean of fatigue was pressing down on her. But she didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to move. This was the closest she’d ever been to Shiro, and he was warm, soothing, holding her up and supporting her both emotionally and physically. She could hear his heartbeat through his clothes, steadily lulling her into sleep.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was tucked into bed, still in her worksuit. She hadn’t had a nightmare. She knew that wouldn’t last. She closed her eyes once more, to get what sleep she could.

It was their last night on Olkarion. There was a report of an abandoned planet not far from the center of the Empire; it could make an excellent base if they could keep it hidden… and _if_ it were truly abandoned. Which was up to Voltron to find out, in case it was a trap.

What Shiro hadn’t been expecting was a summons from the princess to come to the Castle. It wasn’t quite night yet – late dusk – when the call came through. “I need to test something. Please come to the Castle.”

Of course he obeyed. He had no reason not to. No _good_ reason, none he would willingly explain to her. He left the planet-side living quarters and headed to the ship. Once aboard, he brought up the Castle’s search function. It showed him a pink dot in the alchemy lab. He headed there.

He chimed once when he reached it, and the door opened for him. He stepped dutifully into the designated safe zone, far enough for the door to close. “You sent for me, Princess?”

“Yes!” She turned from her texts and smiled at him. “I have a theory, finally. But I need to… well, to scan you basically. Just not with the Castle this time. No pod involved, I promise.”

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” he teased.

She answered earnestly, “No, not at all. All you have to do is stand there and let me put my hand on your chest. That’s all. If you feel anything at all, it should be a light tingling sensation, and not at all unpleasant.”

He nodded. “Okay, I can do that.”

He watched her walk up to him. She was still in that damn worksuit, dark and nearly skin-tight and showing off every curve she had. He tried to keep his eyes on hers, but that summoned up a whole new set of problems. He cleared his throat.

She stopped just in front of him, feet half-over the ‘safety zone’ marking. She reached out and laid her hand right over his heart. _I hope she doesn’t ask why it’s beating so quickly._ But she didn’t; for now, she just closed her eyes. Her hand began to glow.

And Shiro was filled with a warmth, a little tingly, but good. It spread from her hand into his heart and lungs and out along every vein and artery, through every muscle and organ, filling his entire body with the perfect warmth of an afternoon in late spring. He felt almost buoyant.

He watched her stand there, eyes closed, hand glowing faintly, with no idea of how she was affecting him. She didn’t know how she _normally_ affected him, the impact she always had on him, but now there was _this_ and it was beautiful, _she_ was beautiful and so close to him. The urge to tip her chin up softly with one hand and kiss her was almost unbearable.

He couldn’t do that. But he had to do something, he had to make some acknowledgement of how he was feeling right now. Almost unconsciously, he raised his left hand and laid it over hers on his heart, as if he could press her and this feeling closer to him.

The effect was immediate. It was like a circuit had been closed between them, and Shiro couldn’t help closing his eyes now, as well. He could… _feel_ her. Not just her hand or her presence, but her, Allura, the very essence of her.

He could _see_ her in his mind’s eye as a shimmering radiance, almost too bright to look at, but he couldn’t turn away. She was captivating.

He could feel her in his heart, and the love he had for her poured out and enveloped him, like a warm blanket, fresh from the dryer, after coming in from the cold.

The light of her within him pushed away his darkness. It didn’t banish it; she couldn’t do that, not like this. That would be a team effort, to do _together_ , because it was _his_ darkness to deal with. But her light pushed it back a little, and gave him room to breathe. Room to begin that work.

Everything had been scanning just the way she’d expected, completely in line with her theory, and then something miraculous happened: she could suddenly see and feel Shiro – Takashi – in a clarity and a certainty she had never had before. She saw him in her mind as a cascade of stars, mere pinpoints of fire in space but each one presenting the possibility of life, of hope, of light in the dark.

Her love for him surged through her heart, steady and strong as a pillar of the rarest and most durable metal. It held her up, but it couldn’t be her entire support, and she knew that. She knew it would take the two of them, together, but his enduring presence would never leave her. He would help her get on her feet so she could face everything she had to.

He opened his eyes and his gaze met Allura’s as her eyes opened as well. He realized now, fully and finally, how deep into this he was, how inevitable it seemed now to love her. He couldn’t escape and never wanted to. He leaned forward.

She did the same, rising up just enough for their lips to meet.

It was a second, a tick; it was ten thousand deca-phoebs. Her lips were soft, and he felt like he’d never kissed anyone before ever in his life, as if this was what a kiss _truly **was**_ and everything else had been pretend and make-believe.

And he threaded his hands into her hair, and she took tight hold of the front of his vest and they pulled each other in, deepening the kiss with a demanding passion. They seemed to feed into and off of each other, even as the glowing of her hand stopped and the mystical connection between them ended. Right now, he wanted an entirely different sort of connection with her.

“My room,” was all she said when they broke from each other, and he nodded, feeling like he had the first time he’d flown up into the blue sky, the first time he and Black had merged. He felt like he was exactly where he should be.

She tugged him by the hand through the hallways to her room, and when the doors shut behind them, she pulled him in to kiss him again desperately as if it had been deca-phoebs, not doboshes. He held her to him tightly, as if letting go of her would mean this would all end and he’d wake up to this having been the best dream he’d had in a long, long time.

He slid his lips away to her cheek, to her ears, and she gasped to show they were as sensitive as he’d wondered. “I want…” Allura panted. “I _need_ …”

“I know,” he replied, dropping to her neck. “I do, too.”

She shook her head, hair ghosting against his cheek, and he raised his head to look at her. She was searching for words; somehow there was still a connection between them, enough for him to interpret her expressions with confidence. “But it’s more. I…”

“I’m falling in love with you,” he told her. “Maybe I already _am_ in love. I think it might be too late.”

She laughed once. “Is it bad? To love me?”

“Not at all. But if that’s what’s worrying you…”

“I think it’s the same for me,” she said, interrupting him this time.

“Then say it? Please?”

She smiled. “Tell me how to say it in Japanese.”

“ _Aishiteiru.”_

“ _Ashteroo_?”

He laughed and repeated it for her a few times.

It took her a few more tries, but finally she looked into his eyes and said softly, “ _Aishiteiru, Shirogane Takashi.”_

He smiled and kissed her again.

“You have to, too,” she told him. “In Altean.”

“How do I say it in Altean?” he asked, hands searching through her hair for the pins (or whatever) that was keeping it in its bun.

“There are many ways to say ‘I love you’ but there are different ways for different types of love, even for different… depths of romantic love.”

His dark eyes met her crystalline ones. “I love you through all of time and space.”

She blinked and blushed. “The closest to that would be… _By aru vera_.”

“ _By aroo verra.”_

She giggled. “Close.”

He had to repeat it a few more times, and, at one point, got interrupted halfway through by Allura kissing him.

He finally got her to keep still as he pulled the pins out and let her hair tumble down. He combed his right hand through her tresses, and told her, “ _By aru vera, Allura_ ,” deliberately leaving her title out.

She kissed him so hard that he nearly fell to the floor. He held her as much to steady himself as to enjoy the feel of her in his arms.

Her hands began unzipping his vest. “Is this okay?” she asked when she could.

“Mm-hm,” he agreed, “very okay.” He was distracted by his journey to her other ear.

She chuckled. “Are you even aware of what I’m asking?”

“ _Everything_ is okay.” He paused and straightened up so he could see her face. “Alteans don’t make love by dancing and chanting, do they?”

“What? No!” she laughed. “Why would you even ask that?”

“Just checking. We _are_ aliens to each other.”

“Only biologically.” She pushed his vest back off his shoulders, down his arms, grinning up at him. “And I’m looking forward to the discoveries we’ll be making.”

He rained kisses upon her face happily as his hands ran over her body. It was nice to be able to touch her, even through the reinforced cloth of the worksuit, but what he was looking for was… _ah, there it is._ He found the sealed seam where shirt met pants and began working it open. It was even more like the paladin under-armor than he’d thought, thank goodness; he wouldn’t have had a clue where to begin to get her out of it otherwise.

“It’s not going to bother you if I help you out of your clothes?” he asked, just to be sure. He could still remember her crossing her arms over her chest back in the Rektarian hamster cage they’d woke up in.

“Not at all.” She was sliding her hands up between his shirt and skin, smile widening as her fingertips caressed his body. “It’s my choice this time, and I am more than happy for you to see my body now. But when I had no choice, no chance to even protest, _that_ was what bothered me. And you had no choice in it, either.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“Will it bother you?” she asked. “You seemed a bit self-conscious.”

He cleared his throat. “I might be uneasy if everyone else had to see all my scars, but you’ve seen them all, a-and you still…”

“Want you?”

He nodded again.

“Need you?” she purred, pulling the shirt up over his head.

“Yes,” he said as the shirt went over and past his face.

“Do not pity you and am not afraid of you?”

He smiled at her as the shirt was pulled off his arms, freeing him from it entirely. “Exactly.”

She brushed his cheek with her fingers, oh so lightly. “I hate what they did to you. But I could never hate or fear you.”

“I hope that’s true.”

“It is.” She shifted to be a little taller, to be closer to his height, and kissed him deeply. He melted a little into the steady sunbeam of her feelings. When she broke away, she whispered, “And it always will be.”

Having unsealed the seam, it was now _his_ turn to pull _her_ shirt off. She helped him, of course, and then it was almost a race. He had more clothes on than she did, more individual pieces to be removed. He almost forgot the glove on his left hand, probably would have had she not pulled it off and flung it at his face with a “HA!” and a giggle. He’d tackled her to the bed for that and started trying to find any ticklish spots. She writhed away from his hands and he noted the areas she most adamantly defended.

He pinned her hands above her head, then seized her lips for a kiss, harder than he had before. She broke his hold easily so she could pull him in closer. They were down to underwear – even her bra was gone – and he delighted in feeling so much of her. She wanted him, actively, eagerly, and she didn’t hesitate to show it.

He slid his hand down along her body then took hold of her leg, pushing it up towards her chest a little so that he could get a good grip on her thigh. He stroked her skin and enjoyed the feel of his handful. She just hummed happily against his lips and rubbed her other leg against him.

“Sometimes,” he pulled away to say, “I can’t even believe you’re real. That any of this is, but especially you. Sometimes, this feels like the dream.”

“This is real,” she told him. “I’m real, and this is all real, and my feelings for you are real.”

“What feelings?” he asked, even though he knew. He wanted to hear her say it again.

“My love for you.” And that was followed quickly by, “And my desire for you as well.” Her eyes dipped down along what she could see of him atop her, and her gaze was heated, intense. She licked her lips.

He grinned. “Does my giant kitty princess want something specific?” he asked.

She laughed and then, without warning, he was on his back on the bed and she was the one on top. “Yes, she does. And my warning about calling me that in public stands, by the way.”

“Understood.” He was about to ask what it was she wanted, exactly, but she pushed herself up and hooked her fingers in the waistband of his boxer briefs.

“Okay?” she asked.

He nodded and licked suddenly dry lips. “Very.” And he arched his hips so she could get the underwear off more easily.

Her eyes went straight to his half-erect dick, and she literally tossed that last item of clothing behind her as if it were garbage. “Well, so far this is pretty in line with my expectations,” she said. “Maybe a little thicker.”

He blushed. “It’s, uh… not fully hard yet.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Let me know if…”

“I will.”

She smiled and reached down to run her hand along his shaft. It twitched in response, and she just kept going, like she was petting a small (well, not _that_ small) animal. “In Alteans, this would be very erotic.”

“It is for humans, too,” he assured her after pausing to catch his breath.

“Do you have pleasure centers all along it?”

“Uh, it has a lot of nerves in it, to send pleasure or pain or any other kind of signal. Most of them are in the head though.”

“Oh, this part?” She swirled her finger around the tip and his breath shuddered. All he could do was nod. “Interesting. I suppose this would be the most significant part, if it releases the seed as in Alteans.”

“Uh… sounds about right?” he gasped. She was still toying with it.

“And this?” She moved her hand to his sack.

“Careful,” he said immediately. “That’s, uh…” It was weird to say it like this, but he wanted to keep it in terms she knew. “…seed storage, as it were. And it’s delicate.”

“Ah, more nerve endings,” she surmised. “Which means it could also be a source of pleasure?”

“If you’re _careful_ ,” he stressed.

“Humans are so delicate,” she teased him. And then she leaned down and slid her mouth over just the head of his cock.

He gasped in surprise, and again when she began to cautiously rub his balls with both hands. She bobbed her head lightly, like a ship on a gentle tide, and he gave up trying to watch her in favor of closing his eyes, letting his head fall back, and just focusing on the sensation. _It’s been so long…_

“You seem to like this.”

“Oh god yes,” he groaned.

“Should I suck more of you, or is the head enough?”

The question made his brain trip for a moment. “Uh… either’s good. I… whatever you want.”

When she did nothing, he opened his eyes again to find her looking at him sadly. “What? Is something wrong?”

“You’re not used to pleasure anymore, are you?”

That wasn’t something he expected. “I… I mean, I’ve had _fun_ with you and the team sometimes.”

“Not the same.”

“It’s a little the same. Food goo fights – as one example – are fun, they make me happy, they’re… they’re pleasurable, just not sexual.”

She cocked her head. “But it’s not… When was the last time someone did something for you for no other reason than to make you happy?”

He had to go back to the good days with Adam for that. “It’s… been a while, yes.”

“I’m sorry.” She slid up to kiss him softly. “You deserve better.”

“And you?” he asked pointedly. “I don’t think you’ve been pampered much either.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “I suppose not.”

He brushed some hair back behind her ear. This time, she didn’t protest or use their code word. “I want to make you happy, Allura.”

“You do.” She smiled brightly. “Let me make you happy, and then you can make _me_ happy, hm?”

“Sounds fair.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than she returned to his cock, stroking it gently with one hand.

“Teach me,” she said. “I want to make sure you get exactly what you want.”

“You’re what I want,” he told her.

She smiled. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

He closed his eyes and focused on her hand. “That’s nice. Just a little tighter, not t-… that’s good. You’ll probably want some lotion or somethi-…”

He was interrupted by her replacing her hand with her tongue, licking along his fully-erect length.

“That’ll work,” he groaned agreeably.

She returned to the head, took him in almost all the way, slid back up, and repeated a few times. Then she resumed her focus on the head as her hand took hold of his shaft. She stroked and sucked and he completely forgot about anything else.

“Am I doing well?”

“ _Very_ , don’t stop…” He was going to leave it there, but courtesy tapped his brain on its mental shoulder. He opened his eyes to look at her. “Uh, unless you don’t want to… make a mess.”

“I told you I want your pleasure.”

“And my pleasure – in this sense – will be messy,” he replied evenly, catching his breath while she was busy talking. “Do I need to…?”

“No, you don’t. I’m assuming you’re referring to the ejaculation of _tre-_ …” She paused and tsked. “The universal translator doesn’t know the English words for it. Seed fluid.”

“Semen or seminal fluid,” he told her, “and yes, I am.”

She seemed to make a note of that, probably to update the translator later – _not now, don’t leave to do it now, please_ – and nodded. “Then let me deal with the mess. I’m helping you make it, after all.”

“I just wanted to make sure we were clear on what’s going to happen if you keep going.”

“We are. Lay back, relax, and let me know if there’s something you want more or less of.”

“I will, but honestly? The combo of your mouth and your hand was wonderful.”

She smiled and he watched her lips slide slowly back onto him. She sheathed his entire length in her mouth a few times, to wet his cock so her hand could more easily stroke him, then retreated to lavish attention on the head once more. That was when he gave up watching.

_Princess Allura is sucking me off. Princess. **ME**. I… holy hell this is incredible. _His thoughts were too scattered to pin down beyond that, and aside from the building pleasure in him, he was overcome with a deep-seated awe and gratitude. _She loves me._

It wasn’t really that thought that sent him over the edge – it was definitely the swirl of her tongue just under the head of his cock, timed with a decisive downward stroke – but it was the last coherent thought he had before he tipped over into his orgasm. Her mouth never left him, her hand kept moving, and his body eased down into relief and an almost-purring contentment.

“Interesting,” was the next word he heard from her. He opened his eyes.

She had her head tilted just a little, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Saltier than I’m used to.”

He sat up, propping himself on his elbows. “Did you actually swallow?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“Well, it’s your choice; I don’t think it’ll harm you. At least, it wouldn’t harm a human. I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to.”

“Why not?”

“Some people find it gross.”

“Well, I’m not ‘some people’,” she informed him loftily. “I can’t say it’s my new favorite taste, but it isn’t bad at all.” She grinned and crawled up to lay her head on his shoulder. “I might enjoy acquiring a taste for it.”

He laughed and kissed her forehead. “And speaking of acquiring a taste…”

“Hm?” she asked innocently.

“Don’t bat those eyelashes at me and act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” He slid his hand over her hip.

“Haven’t the faintest idea,” she replied, trying not to giggle.

He caressed her skin with the same seeming innocence of her expression, then struck without warning at one of the areas he’d noticed her defend viciously during their tickle fight.

As expected, she shrieked and squirmed. “No fair!”

He pounced, pinning her back to the mattress. “All’s fair in love and war.”

“We don’t have that saying!”

“You’re dealing with an Earthman now.”

“Treacherous,” she hissed at him, despite her grin.

He leaned down. “Hungry,” he whispered back, and watched her lick her lips as her cheeks bloomed red. He kissed her, could still taste himself on her tongue, and didn’t care. He kissed his way down to her neck to lick at her pulse. He had every intention of taking his time, but he felt Allura spread her legs a little. So he slid his right hand down to hook his fingers into the top of her panties. He felt her arch up against him so he could begin to tug them down. He had to repeat this with his other hand on the other side, and then he had to sit up – releasing her – and move down so he could get the best view as he pulled this last bit of cloth down her gorgeous legs. Down, down, and off, and he dropped them to the floor at the end of the bed, crawled back up to let his right hand ghost between her thighs as she spread them even wider for him. He looked to her face, wanting to see her expression as he began to tease her…

He paused and looked down, just in case his hand wasn’t where he thought it was. “You don’t have a clitoris.”

“A what? The translator didn’t catch that.”

He explained and her eyes widened. “An _external_ pleasure center? Interesting. Potentially dangerous, but interesting. No, mine is inside. Deep, _deep_ inside. But just as you derive pleasure from your entire length being stroked despite the head being the most sensitive, so I derive pleasure from being entered, even if the most pleasurable area is the farthest in.”

“Okay, that makes sense.” He smiled. “Do you mind if I use my hand on you?”

Her mouth twisted. “If you’re going to phrase it like that, I do.”

His smile morphed into a grin as he crawled up towards her. He dropped his voice a little as he leaned in towards her ear, all but purring at her, “Can I finger you, Giant Kitty Princess?”

She giggled and blushed and nodded. “Better.”

He resumed sucking on her neck first, making her gasp with those attentions for now. His fingers still teased her, but a bit more directly: spreading her folds slightly then slipping out, sliding up and down between them and around her entrance but never going in.

She whimpered and spread her legs more. He just moved down to one of her gorgeous breasts and helped himself to a mouthful.

Her moan was loud and punctuated with another whimper as he slipped two fingers into her, but only barely, then back out again. “Shiro…” she pouted.

He released his mouthful of nipple and breast to say, “Use my first name when we’re alone.”

“Takashi,” she corrected, and she was on the edge of panting it, her voice almost smoky from her breathlessness. His cock twitched in response; he was definitely recovering now.

He slid two fingers into her slowly. She was hot and wet and they went in easily, deeper than he’d really intended for a first time, but she whispered a “thank you” into the air, so clearly she didn’t mind. He stroked the tight walls inside her, pushed them away a little, worked on stretching her (given the comment she’d made about how thick he was). She rocked her hips towards his hand and mewed happily.

He switched breasts, but kept the same hand inside her, kept working her to be wetter. Then he pulled his hand away and sat up a little.

“Takashi…” she pouted at him, propping herself up on her elbows.

He twitched again, he couldn’t help it, hearing her say his name was electric, it went all through him and awoke every part. But he just considered his soaking wet fingers and then, making good and sure she was watching him, slid them into his mouth.

She groaned and he closed his eyes. She tasted sort of smoky, rich, like a dry dessert wine. He slid the fingers in and out of his mouth slowly, licking them clean, and when he opened his eyes again, she was actually panting, chest heaving, licking her lips as she looked at him.

“Lay back,” he told her. “It’s your turn for pleasure now.”

“I was already having it,” she informed him, though she did as he said.

“You deserve more.” He moved down the bed, took hold of her thighs and pulled them apart with a quick jerk.

She gasped in delight.

He let his fingers – on both hands – dive back into her moonlit curls, let them spread her folds so he could bury his nose into that overwhelming scent of her and slowly trace his tongue around just inside her.

“Yee-ess…” Her words were already breaking.

He didn’t let himself rest on that laurel. He dove in, stroking her as hard as he could with his tongue, lapping her up like a cat with a saucer of milk. She arched off the bed, but he just pushed her thighs open some more and kept going.

Allura – Princess Allura, gorgeous, brave, amazing leader of the Voltron Coalition – was panting his name like it was her salvation as he ate her out. She arched again, hands fists in the bedclothes, and he looked up as she eased down.

“Should I keep going again?”

“YE-… no… I… let me breathe,” she settled on, so he stroked her inner thighs softly, pressed an occasional kiss to whatever innocent patch of skin he felt like, and watched her recover.

“Your markings are interesting. Do they… do anything for you?”

She smiled. “You’re supposed to be an explorer. Find out.”

_Fair enough_. She had a large one on the outside of each thigh. He tried tracing its path with two fingers. She seemed to shiver pleasantly. There was one that cupped her belly button and, impulsively, he leaned down to lick at it.

She inhaled sharply and her smile widened.

“Turn over?” he asked.

She rolled onto her stomach to reveal the markings on her back. Was it just him or were they starting to glow faintly? One in particular caught his attention, in the small of her back, a widespread V shape, almost like the Voltron symbol. Almost.

So he leaned down and traced from one end to the other with his tongue out of curiosity.

She buried her face in the pillows to muffle her moan. Then she raised her head and turned to look at him over her shoulder. “That… that is my most sensitive marking.”

“Really? So what happens if I do this?” and he rubbed at the center with two fingers, as if he were working out a small knot.

She cried out, loud, eyes falling closed. He did it again, and she dropped her face back into her pillow to try to silence the ecstasy.

“Oooh, so now I have a dilemma,” he mused.

She raised her head, looked at him over her shoulder again – and _damn_ she looked good like that. “Wh-what’s that?” she asked, catching her breath.

“I really want to keep doing this for you, but I also want to see your face when I’m… when we’re…”

“When you’re inside me?” she supplied for him. “When we’re fucking? Making love?”

“All of that,” he agreed with a grin. “And thank you.”

“Oh, well that’s easy.” She pushed herself up and began arranging the pillows. “Here.” She patted the bed, just in front of her pillow pile. “Come sit here, and I’ll straddle your lap.”

He smiled. “So I can have my arms around you while…”

“…I take you in as deep as I can get you,” she finished with her own smile. “Exactly.”

He moved to take the requested seat, then hesitated. “Uh… shouldn’t I…? I mean, I don’t know if Alteans have condoms necessarily, but something like them?”

She tsked. “Another word the translator didn’t catch.”

He could guess which one. “Contraception?”

“Oh!” She laughed. “An excellent point, and quite necessary. Hold on.” She clambered off the bed.

“You say it’s ‘quite necessary’ but when we were being held by the Rektarians, you seemed to take offense to the idea of their increasing your fertility.”

A section of wall opened. There must have been some sort of small keyboard in there, because it seemed to him she was typing? But her back obscured his view. “Well, yes. Altean fertility is… emotional.”

“Emotional?”

She finished typing and turned to face him again. “I knew, then, that you were an attractive young man, Shi- …Takashi. But I didn’t realize how deep my feelings for you ran. If I’d known, I would have scoffed at their attempts for another reason.”

He blushed, but pointed out, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

There was a small beep from behind her and she turned to collect something. When she turned back, each of her hands was closed into a loose fist, and the wall section slid shut. “Alteans are only fertile when we love someone. We can’t impregnate or become pregnant without that emotional connection.”

Realization dawned. “So their saying they could ‘increase your fertility’ was akin to them saying they could manipulate your emotions.”

She nodded. “And if I’d realized how much I cared for you, then their attempts would be unnecessary. But as it stands now…” She held out one hand to him and opened it. There was a small, light blue pill – diamond shaped but with rounded edges – in her hand. “This one is for you. It’s made according to your biological scan. And I have one for myself, as well.”

“Because…” The rest of the realization hit. “…because if we don’t take some precaution, you’d…”

“Definitely become pregnant with your child,” she finished. She was good at finishing his sentences, but then that was nothing new. “Which would make the Rektarians wildly happy, but they’re not here right now and… well, our having a child together would require a lot of discussion that I’m too impatient to have right now.” She smiled.

He returned the smile and looked down at the pill she was offering him. “Do they work right away?” he asked, picking it up out of her palm.

She nodded. “Yes, of course, so long as they’re taken before ejaculation.”

“Uh… I could use some water to take this with…”

She smiled. “My private bathroom is this way.”

He scooted off the bed and followed her. He knew she had her own bathroom, and he expected something luxurious, something soft and sensual and fit for a princess.

It looked just like the training deck bathroom, except for an extra stall that both did and didn’t look like the showers. “What’s that?”

“My personal dryer,” she told him. “Helps with all this hair.”

He laughed. “Makes sense.” He looked around. “Is there a cup?”

She shook her head. “I have an idea, don’t worry.” She cupped her hand under the faucet, and it dutifully filled her hand. She tossed her pill into her mouth, then raised her hand to her mouth to drink. She swallowed and looked at him. “Put your pill in your mouth.”

He did so.

She filled both hands with water this time, and drank from them, but didn’t swallow. She took hold of his head and leaned in. He almost grinned when he figured out what she was doing, but he didn’t have time for that. He met her kiss with his own and opened his mouth to hers. The water spilled into his mouth, and he pulled away reluctantly once he had enough to wash the pill down with. Some excess trickled out the corner of his mouth, running down his chin as he swallowed.

She swallowed the water left in her mouth, then slowly licked up the wet trail from his chin to his lips before kissing him again. He embraced her, let his right hand rub that marking in the small of her back.

She moaned against his mouth, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted someone so much. Part of him said, _Pick her up, put her on the counter, take her right here_ , but it felt wrong for their first time. He wanted what she’d offered: her riding him on her bed, her eyes locked on his as he filled her. And she wouldn’t have offered it if she hadn’t wanted it, too.

He was going to pick her up, to carry her back to her bed, when she turned the tables: she picked _him_ up, then headed for the door.

He laughed as he looped his arms around her neck. “You sure know how to sweep a guy off his feet.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. “You like it.”

“I love it, actually,” and it was true. He never got to be carried. Adam could pick him up, but couldn’t carry him far, so this was nice. He laid his head on Allura’s shoulder and sighed happily. “Can you carry me to my Lion for each mission, too? It’d be nicer than the ziplines.”

She gasped in mock outrage. “What’s wrong with the ziplines?!”

“Nothing, but this is a lot nicer.”

“You’ll make do with the ziplines,” she told him, dumping him unceremoniously on her bed before putting her hands on her hips. “I am _not_ going to carry you to your Lion.”

“Piggyback ride?” he asked.

She laughed. “I have no idea what that is but the answer’s still _no_.”

“Why not?” he asked, pouting up at her.

She put her hand over his face so she wouldn’t have to see the pout. “Because then all the Paladins will want to be carried to their Lions. It’ll make mission deployment take five times as long, at least!”

“Coran can help,” he pointed out, then licked her palm.

She jerked her hand away with a laugh. “Even so! No carrying to the Lions.”

He scooted over into the center of the bed, made sure he was sitting properly. “Is it crass of me to pat my lap?” he asked.

She snorted. “Perhaps.” She moved around to the foot of the bed, paused, kicked her panties aside ( _did her foot get tangled in them?_ he wondered), and then crawled up onto the mattress.

He swallowed hard, watching her crawl over him on her hands and knees. She was like a prowling lioness, he thought, and god _damn_ it was sexy. She prowled right up to him and kissed him again.

He wanted to raise his hands to her face, but before he could do more than start the motion, she clamped down on his hands with her own. Apparently all he could do was sit there and receive her lips and her tongue and whatever else she was willing to give him.

She bit his lip gently, not breaking the skin, and tugged on it as she pulled away. And when she released him, she grinned. “Ready, my love?”

“Very,” he agreed. “I need you, Allura.” He leaned forward a little to whisper, voice husky and low, “You are _necessary_.”

She recoiled from the word, but she was laughing when she said, “STOP THAT! You’re horrible!”

He couldn’t help laughing. “Well, it’s true.” Since she’d released his hands during her horrified reaction, he held them out to her. “Come here. I promise to behave after this.”

“You’d better,” she warned him, a sparkle in her eye as she straddled his legs just behind his erection.

He slid his hands around her waist. “I promise. I swear.”

“On what?” she asked, one finger toying with the head of his cock.

He sucked in a breath, but made sure his gaze and his words were both sincere. “I swear upon my love for you.”

She smiled, even blushed a little, finger stilling. “Say it again.”

“ _By aru vera._ ”

Her blush deepened. “ _Aishiteiru_.”

He felt his cheeks heat as well.

She leaned in to kiss him again, briefly, then looked down to work on her alignment with him. She rose up, and he steadied her, careful to keep his hands away from that sensitive marking of hers (for now). She held him in one hand, her other on his shoulder, and he helped her lower herself gently, more slowly than gravity would have.

They went slow because this was their first time together, because there was something magical and almost frightening about how quickly they’d gotten to this point from their mutual denials, because they wanted to savor it, because she was tight and so hot that he thought he’d melt away. She was focusing on steadying her breathing but occasionally she’d moan or even _whimper_ and then she’d bite her lip and oh god, he couldn’t believe any of this was real.

“Nn, Takashi… You’re…”

“Are you okay?”

She laughed breathlessly. “Better than ‘okay’. But…” she muttered something in untranslatable Altean under her breath (or maybe his universal translator just didn’t catch it), “…you’re bigger than I thought… than I _dreamed_ you’d be. And it’s been so long…”

“It feels like it’s been forever,” he agreed. He brushed some hair back from her face, pleased that she smiled instead of recoiling. “And I’ve never been with anyone like you.”

“Altean?”

“Wonderful,” he corrected.

She blushed.

“Amazing,” and he leaned in to kiss her. “Incredible.” A kiss to her cheek. “Fantastic.” Down to her neck.

“Takashi, stop that,” she protested gently.

“Never.” He continued licking and kissing her neck as he slid his right hand down along her spine. He barely brushed her marking.

She trembled and sighed softly. “More,” she told him. “Harder.”

He began tracing the marking (as best he could, from what he remembered of where it was), no teasing touches now.

She moaned his name. Her breasts rose and fell faster.

He found the center of the marking and rubbed it hard, like he had before.

She gasped and he felt her sink a little lower, taking more of him.

He nipped at her throat and her hands clutched at his shoulders. “Is that good or…?”

“It’s good,” she said before he could finish the question. “Oh, Takashi, it’s so good.”

He pulled away from her neck and she grabbed his head, hauling it up to hers to kiss him. She began to rise carefully, then sank back down, taking more of his hard cock into her. It was his turn to moan against her lips, and she bit his lip again, a little harder.

Her hands returned to his shoulders, and they focused on the rise and fall of her, on his body striving to meet hers, on finding the rhythm of their own breath and each other. Every time their gazes caught, he felt like he was abruptly the center of the entire universe, both endlessly powerful and entirely powerless.

He remembered the marking and, as she rose up, he prepared. At her zenith, just before she would have started her downward trip, when only his head was inside her, he rubbed her marking _hard_ , as hard as he was confident pressing without bruising her.

She moaned louder than he’d ever heard her and threw her head back, hair cascading over his hands as she abruptly took him all the way in, their bodies meeting. Her nails were dug into the skin of his shoulder, but he didn’t care. She was in exquisite ecstasy right now, because of him, and he kept it up, massaging the marking as hard as he could.

She raised her head, pressed her forehead against his, eyes closed as she panted for air. “T-Ta… Oh, _Takashi_ …”

And he was doing vector calculations, astral projection coordinate calculations, anything from coming right here and now, because he wasn’t sure if that had been an orgasm for her or not and he wasn’t about to come before her.

Instead, he whispered, “Yes, my princess?”

She smiled and began to move again. She was perfect, so sweet, so wet and tight and holy fuck he thought he was going to combust. Her grip loosened but her hands stayed on his shoulders and she sat up a little, opened her eyes and watched him as she well and truly rode him now.

The motion meant he couldn’t press as hard on her marking, but he did the best he could.

She licked her lips and moved faster.

“Oh, fuck,” he gasped.

“I thought we were,” she purred at him.

He was suddenly very aware of how in control she was here. She practically owned him, if someone had asked him now, he’d swear it to be true. _I’m hers… I’m all hers…_ He was the one on the point of losing it right now, and he licked his lips. “Allura, I…”

She slowed down, stayed longer at the bottom when he was fully inside her, and he nodded gratefully when she asked, “Better?”

She finger-combed his hair back out of his face. “I want to us to,” some strange Altean word, “together.”

He could guess. “Yes,” he agreed.

“So stop holding back,” she growled at him with an almost feral grin. “Stop holding back on touching me, on kissing me, and stop holding _yourself_ back.”

He blinked. _I really didn’t think I was holding back on the marking…._ “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. You _can’t_.” She smirked. “I invite you to _try_.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure? This is my right hand, Allura, and I…”

“So long as you don’t activate it, I’ll be fine.” She sounded very confident of that. “I thought you knew by now that I am not a delicate flower to be cradled and protected.”

“I’ll always protect you,” he informed her, “but ‘delicate’ you are not.”

She smiled. “And I’ll protect you, my paladin, my love.” She kissed him sweetly.

And when she pulled away, he pressed against the marking a little harder than he’d dared to before.

She moaned gratefully and began to move again.

They gathered speed quickly, more aware of how the other moved by now, of what to expect. He pressed her marking hard, rubbed different spots of it, and lapped at her neck as he was able to. She rode him hard, fast, panting his name.

And, technically speaking, they didn’t come together: her orgasm made her already tight body tense further, tighten around him even more, and he came hard, unstoppably, a release as necessary as air.

She wrapped her legs and arms around him and held her to him, her own body as sweat-slick as his. He could feel her heartbeat, and even though he felt like he was burning up, he wrapped his arms around her in return, because he wanted to be as close to her as he could be.

Eventually, they had to move. He had softened past his ability to stay inside her; both of their legs and arms needed to move, to stretch. She stood and helped him stand, then kept holding his hand as she led him back to her private bathroom.

They made full use of the facilities – including very full use of the shower, where Allura confessed she’d pleasured herself here thinking of him, he had admitted doing similarly, and then they’d made each other’s fantasies real – and then went back to her bed.

He laid down beneath the covers – somehow already changed and cleaned; the Castle truly was a marvel – and smiled at her as she did the same. “I have a lot of nightmares,” he said.

“So do I.”

He remembered her telling him that, back up by the Black Lion. He nodded. “If I wake up and find this was all a dream, that’d be worse than most of them.”

She chuckled. “If you wake up and find this was all a dream, find me and kiss me, Shiro. Tell me you love me and kiss me and don’t let me go. Because whether this is a dream or not, my feelings for you are very, very real.”

He blushed, but he felt warm all through himself, not just in his face. “I love you, Allura. _By aru vera._ ” He yawned.

She smiled and reached a hand out to finger comb his hair again. “ _Aishiteiru, Takashi_. Rest. I’ll be here when you wake.”

He didn’t doubt it. He struggled to keep his eyes open, to continue to see her smiling at him, but the warmth within him – of her love for him and his for her – and the warmth around him – from her laying next to him beneath the covers – gently lulled him off to sleep.

Allura watched Takashi fall asleep, a small, contented smile on her face. Her alchemical scan had proved her theory, but if she’d had any doubts, they’d been dashed when she’d been able to _feel_ him and see him in her very soul. Perhaps the Rektarians hadn’t explained themselves because they didn’t have the words they needed to describe what it was they were looking to preserve, but she knew exactly the right word:

Sacred.

Takashi Shirogane was Sacred, just like she was. He was human, yes, not at all Altean, but he’d been blessed by the Goddess of the Universe at some point.

She watched her new lover breathe slowly and softly in his sleep. She yawned herself, full of the warmth of love and hope and peace. And before she fell asleep, she murmured, “I need to remember to teach you that alchemy trick tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading "Shiro & Allura Get REKT!" ^_^


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